The Child of Sun and Moon

Chapters

Confrontation and Consequence
A Lesson and a Revelation
Secrets
Decisions
Moonblade
The Gray Mare Comes
Mending
Whispers
The Sun's Plea
From the Ashes
Worst Kept Secrets
A Thousand Tiny Stars
Crystallon
Family Ties
The First Day
A Fable's Truth

Confrontation and Consequence

Starjumper learned that morning that starting school at seven o’clock was going to cause him some problems.

The main problem was that it just didn’t give him very much time. Princess Twilight had raised the sun at 6:21 that morning, which put him on a tight schedule if he wanted to eat breakfast and go over his notes after he changed and make it to school on time. But this problem was going to exacerbate as the school year progressed, since the Princess would raise the sun later and later until Winter Moon, the longest night of the year. In the midwinter months, he wasn't going to be able to make it to school on time unless he got very creative, and it was enough of a concern that he made a note to himself to write a letter to Princess Twilight to bring up the issue. It was going to require him to be up well before dawn so he could eat breakfast and have his school materials all in order, and leave as soon as he changed. At least his apartment was on campus, so he didn’t have to go very far, and that eliminated the possibility that he might be tardy.

The other problem was that he was sleepy and a bit groggy. He usually spent most of the night out flying, and last night he didn’t get back home until well after midnight. He only got a few hours of sleep before dawn, and before he had to come to Canterlot, he usually only woke up long enough to change, clean up the ash, and then go back to bed. He wasn’t used to having to live on a schedule again, not after graduating from school in Baltimare over a year ago. So, he was now awake outside of his usual sleeping pattern, and he was going to suffer a bit until he established a new one.

So, it was a yawning Starjumper that slowly walked into the classroom just bare seconds before the second bell, when everypony else was already at their desks and preparing to start their first full day of classes. He took his desk just as the bell rang, and Professor Frostmane wasted no time. “Today we begin the fundamentals of advanced spellcasting,” she declared. “If everyone would take out their textbooks and turn to page nine, we’ll go over the reading.”

And so started his first full day of being in a school he didn’t want to be in. Frostmane didn’t talk about anything his father hadn’t already taught him, so he spent most of the morning struggling to stay awake, diverting himself by answering Princess Twilight’s letter, and then reading ahead in the textbook as Frostmane went on about magic currents, all the while battling the intense desire to doze off.

It was certainly noticed. About halfway through the morning session, Frostmane realized that Starjumper’s head kept sagging, and her burning gaze in his direction most of the rest of the morning kept him from even so much as closing his eyes. The other students kept glancing back at him when they realized that Frostmane was all but staring somepony down, and there was a bit of whispering in the class whenever Frostmane had her flank to the class, turning to write on the chalkboard. He did his best to stay awake, even if he wasn’t paying all that much attention, and that struggle made the morning seem to drag out to last three days.

But finally, mercifully, the lunch bell rang. As the others started packing their bags to go eat, Starjumper slumped over the desk and put his chin down on it, closing his eyes. He heard Frostmane stalk up to him, her hooves clattering on the wooden floor, but he didn’t react to her presence. “You are at this school to study, Mister Starjumper, not sleep,” she declared, which caused some giggling from the ponies who were filing out.

“Sorry, Professor. I’m trying to stay awake,” he replied without opening his eyes. “I’m not used to having to be up so early. I haven’t been in school in over a year.”

The afternoon session wasn’t much better, but at least he managed to stay awake. Mainly because he got enthralled with a bit of reading further in the textbook, which explained how to learn spells based on mathematical formulas rather than a spell matrix, rendering a spell down to a mathematical expression of the magic used to cast it. It was something his father had never taught him. Starjumper had always had an inclination for mathematics, so the chapter was quite interesting to him. He more or less ignored Frostmane and the class in general as he read the chapter, wrote out quite a few notes about what he was reading, and was making quite good progress…at least until Frostmane used her magic to drop a heavy book on his desk, nearly startling him out of his mane. Laughter erupted from the classroom as he got his composure back, and looked up into the baleful silver eyes of Frostmane. “Perhaps now you can answer the question I asked you, Mister Starjumper?” she asked archly.

“If you repeat it, ma’am,” he replied. “I was preoccupied with something in the textbook.”

“Well, I suppose that’s better than you falling asleep,” she noted dryly, which caused more laughter. “I asked what the difference was between channeling a spell and charging a spell?”

“Channeling is feeding it constant magic, a sustained casting,” he replied. “Charging is a ‘cast and forget’ spell, where you invest enough magic into a spell that it maintains itself after you cast it. How long it lasts depends on how much magic you charge into its matrix.” His horn limned over with golden energy, and his textbook lifted off his desk, surrounded by a golden aura of magic. “This is channeling.” The textbook she banged on his desk also rose off the desk, floating in midair, also surrounded by an aura of golden magical energy. “This is a charged spell,” he said, causing the shroud of golden light to vanish from his horn. He tapped the floating book with his hoof, and it slowly drifted across the room, back to Frostmane.

“Very good, Mister Starjumper. I also see that you’ve learned how to doublecast,” she noted, taking command of her floating book and bringing it down to her desk, where both the golden aura of Starjumper’s magic and the silvery nimbus of her magic faded.

“My father taught me,” he said modestly.

The rest of the class passed in relative peace, since Frostmane seemed to overlook his lack of attention, at least so long as he had his nose in his textbook. He finished his notes on the mathematical formula chapter and considered trying to learn how it worked, to try to learn spells based on the practice, and he only had to struggle through maybe a half an hour of lecture before the afternoon bell rang. He packed up his supplies and books as the other unicorns did the same, but not all of them were quite willing to leave him alone. “I swear, he’s a complete embarrassment. I have no idea why they let him into our school,” he heard one of the young stallions say, more than loudly enough for him to hear it. After all, that was his intention. Starjumper had learned long ago to just ignore things like that, both for his own peace of mind and for the safety of other ponies.

Half the reason the earth ponies from his school left him alone was because they had tasted his temper. Starjumper was half bat pony, and bat ponies could be savage.

The obnoxious stallion didn’t seem satisfied with the fact that Starjumper was ignoring him. As he walked away from his desk, towards the door, the stallion intentionally got in the doorway and stopped, blocking him in. He was a slender young unicorn with a gray coat and silver-white mane, which he kept long and styled almost like a mare, and had blue eyes. “You don’t belong here,” he said arrogantly, looking up at him with a look of malicious disgust.

“You’re right. I don’t,” Starjumper answered him flatly. “I don’t want to be here any more than you want me here, and I’d be overjoyed if you convince them to let me go home. That being said,” he continued, narrowing his eyes, his pupils retracting to narrow black slits, “get out of my way. Now.”

The smaller stallion drew himself up indignantly. “Don’t order me around, you weird-eyed freak,” he snapped.

It took every bit of his restraint not to blast the little punk halfway across the campus. But he also didn’t let that go, either. “Move, or I'll pound you into the floor," he warned in a voice so cold that it left no doubt whatsoever that he meant every word, physically looming over him to further drive home his point.

The silence in the room was almost a heavy weight settled over the entire class. The rest of the class unicorns stared at them in shocked silence. Not even the sound of breathing could be heard in the room. The smaller unicorn stallion’s eyes widened, clearly never even considering that he might be physically threatened, and the sheer size of Starjumper made that threat very real. He was, by far, the largest pony in the class, even larger than Frostmane.

"Mister Starjumper!" Frostmane said in a tightly controlled voice, loud enough to be heard well down the hallway.

Starjumper kept his eyes locked on the smaller stallion, whose eyes were widening with encroaching fear. It was probably the first time in his entire sheltered life that he'd been faced with actual physical harm, and he didn't know how to respond to it. As a result, he was very nearly frozen, looking up at him with both incredulity and more than a little terror. "Either get him out of my way or I'll do it for you, Professor Frostmane," Starjumper announced to the class, glaring down at the smaller stallion.

"Mister Nova, you will get out of the doorway. Immediately!" she shouted.

The smaller unicorn glared up at him with a malicious little smile. "As soon as he gets out of my way, Professor," he replied. "I can't get back to my desk with him taking up the whole room with all his bulk."

"Wrong answer," Starjumper snarled, his horn erupting into brilliant, nearly painfully bright magical light. He very nearly built the matrix of a spell that would deal with the little punk permanently, but he managed to get hold of his more violent thestral tendencies. If the little snot was all about trying to humiliate him in front of the class, make him appear to back down, well...he could have a taste of his own medicine.

The stallion's body limned over with a golden magical aura, and then Starjumper's spell took hold. The class watched in shock as the annoying stallion started to shrink, get smaller and smaller and smaller, until he was the size of a grasshopper. It was then when the golden aura surrounding the now tiny stallion faded away.

"Mister Starjumper!" Frostmane blazed. "You do not cast spells on other students against their will in this school!"

"The spell won't hurt him, Professor. Unless someone steps on him, anyway," he added with a dark smile down at the insect-sized stallion, who was quite obviously and quite literally freaking out. "I told him I'd move him if he didn't get out of my way. Now I can just step over him," he added simply, which caused a few of the onlooking ponies to giggle a little bit.

"Return him to his normal size immediately!" Frostmane ordered, rushing over from her desk.

"I cast it as a charged spell, Professor, not the usual permanent spell, and you know how unpredictable charged spells can be when they're prematurely dispelled," he said pointedly, looking down at the stallion with a fanged smile, warning him that he could end up that way permanently..that Starjumper could literally pound him into the floor, just as he promised. "It'll wear off in about ten minutes. Until then, just put him in a teacup or something." He raised a hoof and set it down barely six inches from the now tiny stallion, which caused him to flinch violently and then gallop for the side of the door...getting out of his way. It took him a little while to get there. And with that bit of business concluded, he trotted out of the room before Frostmane could order him to go to the Headmistress' office.

A moment later, one of the young mares in class cantered up to him and slowed to match his pace as other unicorns moved through the halls. “That was a mistake,” she said without greeting or preamble. “You humiliated Nova in front of the entire class, and he’s going to hate you forever. And he’s the kind to try to get back at you.”

“Then I’ll crush him,” he replied bluntly without looking down at the young mare. But the voice told him it was the one that looked like Fleur de Lis.

“And no matter how much the rest of us think Nova’s a jerk, that’s not the best way to make friends in Canterlot. We don’t do things like that,” she told him. “Now everypony’s gonna think you’re a crude, low society barbarian.”

He looked down at her. “So what?”

She looked honestly at a loss. “What do you mean, so what? Your reputation could be ruined! No pony will want to talk to you, and you’ll never get invited to any parties!”

He laughed scornfully, which made her glare at him a little. “Do you think I care if nopony invites me to a party? Or if nopony wants to talk to me? As far as I’m concerned, that’s just fine with me. I’m not here to be friends. I’m not here to pretend to be some fancy high society unicorn. I’m here because I was forced to come here,” he told her flatly. “And I just want to get this year overwith and get back to the life that was disrupted when Pr—when they came knocking at my door.” He almost said Princess Twilight. “So excuse me if I don’t give a tarnished bit over how many parties I’m not invited to, or that prissy primadonnas who believe that the fact that they’re Canterlot unicorns and I’m not gives them the right to talk down to me, won’t talk to me when they’re not insulting me matters to me in any way whatsoever.”

That completely threw her, he could see. She absolutely could not fathom the very idea that a pony wouldn’t care about how other ponies thought about them. She was no doubt born in high society and never knew anything different, so for her entire life, she’d been told by her parents and family and friends that nothing mattered more to a unicorn than how other unicorns regarded them. She was so confused, she just looked up at him blankly as they walked, unable to come up with any response at all to his direct challenge to everything she knew and believed.

He picked up his pace without another word, leaving her behind.

The incident with the stallion wasn’t forgotten, however, in the form of Headmistress Roseglass showing up at his apartment door barely a minute after he got back. She almost stalked in with an icy expression, her eyes almost boring into him as he backed up to give her room to come in. “Did you use magic against another student and threaten violence against him, Mister Starjumper?” she said in a voice of complete command.

“You bet I did,” he answered immediately and forcefully. “He insulted my family and my heritage. And he refused to allow me to pass when I tried to walk around him.”

“That is completely unacceptable behavior!”

“So is him saying to my face that I don’t belong in this school,” he retorted.

“I could expel you!”

“Fine. Go ahead,” he snapped back. “I’ll pack my bags right here and now and be on the next train back to Baltimare, because I am not going to put up with an entire year of being treated like a peasant by your stuck-up students. I don’t care how good of an education I can get here, it’s not worth it if I have to endure arrogant jackwagons who believe that I don’t belong here just because I’m not a society unicorn. I thought this was a school for learning, not an exclusive members only club for Canterlot society foals.”

That scattered her. Clearly, she thought he’d fall all over himself apologizing the moment she threatened to expel him from her cherished school. Her eyes flashed, her mouth opened and then closed, then opened again. “You are not in Baltimare any longer, Mister Starjumper. You are attending the most prestigious school in all of Equestria, and we have strict rules of behavior and decorum that must be followed! And in this school, no matter what may be said, you do not ever use magic against another student! And you do not threaten to use violence! We do not brawl like common, low-brow ruffians in this school! There is nothing that can be said to you that justifies such a barbaric response!"

He gave her a long look. “Then so be it. Don’t bother expelling me, Headmistress. I quit.”

“I will write out your letter of withdrawal,” she declared, a bit haughtily. “Right here, right now. I will not tolerate my students threatening violence against one another. It has no place in our school.”

“No, you won’t tolerate some low-brow Baltimare unicorn having the temerity to defend himself against one of your high society darlings, even if he had every right to do so,” he corrected her as he picked up a piece of parchment and a quill from the writing desk across the room with his magic and brought them over. “And if that’s what your school stands for, Headmistress, I want no part of it.”

Her eyes flashed at his insult of her school, but she said nothing. She took command of the parchment and quill with her own magic, a pale red, and hastily wrote as Starjumper quickly and efficiently packed up what few possessions he brought with him. He was ready to leave by the time she finished her letter, and he was more than happy to sign it where she indicated.

Two days. He lasted two days…but, he supposed, he shouldn’t have been all that surprised. He was going to lament losing access to their library, but he was honest about it. It wasn’t worth it if this was the way he was going to be treated in this school, by both the students and the faculty.

It was too close to sunset for him to get on a train, and he didn’t feel like exhausting himself by teleporting home, but then again, he only needed to wait until sunset before he could get home much less tiring than teleporting, much faster than the train could, and much more enjoyable than both. He’d just go back to his original plan of studying at home, working in the family shop and doing the kinds of odd jobs around Baltimare that only a unicorn could do easily to earn the money to buy the spells he wanted to learn, then moving out once he finished his studies. His parents wouldn’t mind giving him back his room…though he wasn’t going to do that to Songbird, he’d given her his room when he left. He’d take Songbird’s old room, which was much smaller. He waited for sunset in Donut Joe’s diner, enjoying some good donuts and coffee as he kept a close eye on the clock. He already knew where he could go to change where he couldn’t be seen, and as soon as he had his wings, he’d be back in Baltimare before the moon was at its zenith.

But, he didn’t take into account that a certain princess was going to put her hoof in. He didn’t notice how quiet the diner got as he sat at the counter, at least until a pony sat beside him. He glanced over and saw Princess Twilight Sparkle, her mane flowing and waving as if it was swaying in a strong breeze, the visible symbol of her responsibility for raising the sun. “Two with extra sprinkles,” she said casually to the aged unicorn behind the counter.

“Sure thing, your Highness. Good to see you,” he replied in his gravelly voice.

“I’m not changing my mind, your Highness,” Starjumper declared before she could even turn to him. “I won’t set hoof in that school again. It’s a cesspool of arrogant superiority.”

“From what I heard, you did sort of threaten beat up another student, Starjumper,” she said mildly. "And you did attack him with magic."

“And did anypony bother to ask what happened before I did that? Why I did that? Or was what I did automatically a crime just because of who I am?” he challenged.

“I’m sure you had a good reason,” she said easily.

“I can forgive the stupidity of some arrogant little colt, your Highness, but the way your Headmistress treated me was absolutely inexcusable, and I will not go back. I was tried and convicted by her before I was even given a chance to defend myself. I’m not going to suffer through an entire year of being the villain, of being in the wrong no matter what I do or what others do to me.”

“Even if I give you a Royal command?”

“Not even that. And if that means you have to throw me in the dungeon, so be it. As far as I’m concerned, that’s better than one more day in that school, because I will never feel or believe that I will be treated fairly. It’s that simple.”

She was silent, nibbling at one of the donuts that Donut Joe set in front of her, suspended in an aura of lavender magic. “I am going to give you a Royal Command, Starjumper, but not over that. You will return to the apartment and stay in Canterlot while I get to the bottom of this. That way I don’t have to recall you from Baltimare if I find out your actions were justified.”

“Yes ma’am,” he answered.

“And if you don’t return to the school, we’ll work something out. You have too much talent for it not to be developed to its full potential, Starjumper. That would be a crime against you and a disservice to Equestria.”

“How about a compromise, your Highness?” he countered. “I’ll stay in Canterlot and study as hard as you want me to, as long as you let me do it on my own. Give me access to the school library and make it clear to everypony that I’m not to be bothered, and I’ll do my best.”

She glanced over at him. “No promises, but I will promise that I’ll think about it.”

“I can’t ask for more than that, your Highness.”

“Well, I suppose if that doesn’t work, I can always throw you in the dungeon and give you books to study,” she said with an impish little smile as she looked over at him.

He had to laugh. “I’d be a captive audience, that’s for sure.”

She laughed in return, then took another bite of her donut. “So, tell me what happened,” she prompted.

He felt strangely vindicated to be able to give his side of the story, and to the Princess no less, something that the Headmistress was unwilling to do, or even consider that he might be telling the truth if he did. She listened attentively as he told her what happened, without embellishment and with very little emotion, and he didn’t shy away from the fact that he did in fact threaten the smaller colt with violence should he ever insult him like that again. He was careful to be a descriptive as possible, taking advantage of his self-training in observation and memory to accurately recant the entire story to her, to the point where he could tell her exactly where both of them were standing within the room. She seemed impressed with the level of detail and the attention to it in his accounting, but then again, she knew his little secret, so she should have expected him to be able to recall things with such exacting detail.

Teleportation was an art as much as a spell, and part of that artistry was the ability to exactly envision his destination from memory. And that required a keen and precise awareness of one’s surroundings.

He then told her about his confrontation with the Headmistress in the apartment after he got home, repeating her statements word for word. “It was clear she made up her mind before she even talked to me, your Highness,” he said after he finished. “And I’m not putting up with it. I’m not going to deal with a hostile Headmistress for the entire year, not when I’m not here by choice.”

“I thought I made the situation clear to her. I guess I didn’t,” the Princess said, mainly to herself.

“Oh, I think she fully understands the circumstances around me being here, your Highness, but she doesn’t care. Or more to the point, she’s not willing to give me a fair chance in a situation like this, where it’s my word against one of her students,” he stressed. “I’m the outsider, the invader, the disruptor of her perfect system. It made her hostile to me the moment I set hoof on her campus.”

“I don’t think it’s quite that bad, Starjumper. You’re showing a little bias yourself.”

“Do you blame me?” he countered. “How would you feel if Princess Celestia stormed into your room and accused you of wrongdoing without even giving you a chance to explain what happened?”

“I’d feel like I was treated unfairly,” she admitted. “But I’d forgive her and move on.”

“That’s because you know and trust her. I don’t know the Headmistress. And after this, now I don’t trust her,” he answered. “She took sides without getting both sides of the story, and I won’t trust her to be fair and impartial if anything else happens, especially after this.”

She was silent as she finished her other donut, then took a sip of her coffee. “I’ve heard what I need to hear, Starjumper. I’ll try to have a decision for you by tomorrow. So stay close to the apartment, I may have to summon you to the palace or to the Headmistress’ office. Just do me a favor and don’t turn her into a radish.”

He had to laugh. “No promises, your Highness,” he said lightly. “And for what it’s worth, thank you for at least listening to me. That’s more than I got from the Headmistress.”

“You’re welcome.”

There was definitely something big going on.

Word had gotten all over Canterlot late last evening that Starjumper had been thrown out of school for threatening Nova, but then, somehow, Princess Twilight got involved in it. A few ponies had overheard her talking to Starjumper in the donut shop last night, and then he returned to the campus, seen going into the Princess’ old apartment in the tower near the palace, where he’d apparently been living.

That was the first indication to Summer Dawn that there was a lot more going on here than anypony suspected. If he was living there, then the Princess had to know about him, and had some kind of personal involvement to approve him living in her old apartment. It got out just before class started that it was the Princess that had put Starjumper in their school, Shimmer had found out from her father who worked in the palace that the Princess was talking about with Princess Starlight last night.

She found it a bit hard to believe that the big, grumpy stallion was put in the school because he had a lot of magical talent, so much that there was no real way he could learn in Baltimare about the kind of magic the Princess thought he could use...but then again, there was that spell he used on Nova. That was a shrinking spell, and that was seriously advanced magic, so advanced that they didn't even teach it in class.

And she remembered that he said that he didn’t want to come here, that he was forced to come, and now she knew it was the Princess that made him. That also got out, that the Princess was complaining to the other Princess that him not wanting to be here was causing way more problems than she expected.

Why would anypony not want to attend the best magic school in all of Equestria?

Nova was almost insufferably smug before school, bragging to anypony that would listen how he got Starjumper expelled, how he was so big and so important that he could get any pony tossed out of school he wanted, and it was so bad that Summer Dawn very nearly complained to a teacher. He sat in the front of the class once it started almost laughing to himself, whispering to his friends and generally being a jerk…until the Headmistress herself came to the room and pulled him out, and she looked mad. After that, everpony in class was paying more attention to the door than they were Professor Frostmane, waiting to see when he came back.

But he never did.

When they broke for lunch, she heard all about it as Blue Buttons all but galloped through the school spreading the word.

Both Nova and Starjumper had been suspended from school, Starjumper for the rest of the week and Nova for two weeks. Nova was suspended for bullying and inciting the confrontation and put on probation, and Starjumper was suspended for threatening to beat Nova up and using magic against another student, both a violation of school rules. But it was clear whose punishment was more severe, because of the probation. When Nova returned in two weeks, he would be on the most severe form of probation the school had. If Nova had just one more incident of misbehavior, no matter how minor, he would be expelled. But, to be fair, that was because of Nova's long and established track record of bullying behavior, so he did sort of deserve it, where this was Starjumper's first violation of school rules.

Both Starjumper and Nova were punished severely for the confrontation yesterday, which sent a powerful and chilling message to the entire student body that any kind of foolishness like that was absolutely not going to be tolerated by the Headmistress. She didn’t seem to care who started it or who was at fault, she threw the book at both of them. And while there was quite a bit of gloating around school that the most hated pony in the entire school was suspended, it did also create some hushed, nervous whispers about how some innocent pony that did nothing wrong might get expelled just for getting into a spat.

It was all anypony could talk about during lunch, and there was a lot of speculation about what was going to happen to Nova. The shame of getting suspended from school and put on severe probation was going to absolutely crush his reputation in Canterlot, and may permanently damage his future. Ponies were going to snub him, reject him, and he’d be a pariah for moons because of his uncouth behavior. And Nova being Nova, Summer Dawn didn’t think he’d make it a whole year without getting into trouble, which would mean he would eventually be expelled. And without a diploma from the school, it was going to lock him out of the more prestigious jobs in the city. He couldn’t work for the palace without a degree, and he’d have to further endure the shame of having to enroll in one of the other schools in Canterlot to get that degree…which wouldn’t be from this school, and that would mean that he’d lose out if a pony with a degree from the school was competing for the same job. It was also going to heavily impact the reputation of his parents, who were prominent members of Canterlot society. There was no doubt that he’d endure the additional humiliation of being read the riot act by his parents for getting suspended, and no doubt severely punished for his besmirching of the family reputation.

His father North Star was well known to be quite severe, who had exceptionally high expectations of all his foals to carry the honor of the family name. For Nova to bring shame to the family name was going to exact a heavy toll.

At the end of lunch, there was another bombshell rocking the campus, because High Horse had seen Starjumper in the library, sitting at a table filled with books, clearly studying.

That caused a firestorm of rumors to fly. Why was he in the library if he was suspended? Why wasn’t he in class if he wasn’t? Nopony knew what was going on, and that made everypony delve into wild speculation. Clearly, though, the Princess had to have a hoof in this somewhere. Had the Princess intervened on Starjumper’s behalf? Had she forced the Headmistress to let Starjumper back in, and made her punish Nova? That would be the fair thing in her opinion, Nova had started the whole thing trying to be a jerk to Starjumper, so if anypony deserved to be punished, it was him…but suspending both of them for what was basically just a staring contest between two stallions seemed a bit overboard.

The end of lunch brought some clarification, as a nearly pinch-nostriled Frostmane got them back in order after they returned and read from a parchment. “I’m sure there are rumors going around about what happened yesterday and this morning,” she said. “And this class deserves to know what’s going on, since it involves your classmates. This morning, both Starjumper and Nova were removed from class for nearly starting a fight,” she announced, but that was old news by now. “However, both were given…special consideration,” she continued. “Contrary to rumor, neither of them were expelled. Mister Nova has been suspended for two weeks, and when he returns, he will be on probation. Mister Starjumper, however, has been suspended for the rest of the week, and will be restricted to the library and doing remedial lessons during his suspension. So, you may see him in the school library during our library study periods on Wednesday and Thursday,” she added dryly, which caused a bit of hushed giggling. “The Headmistress sends down this warning to everypony, and I quote. This school will not tolerate either bullying or threats of physical violence in any form or manner, and that the use of magic against a fellow student is strictly forbidden,” she read from the parchment. “The next instance of any of these violations that is brought to the attention of the staff or the Headmistress will be met with immediate expulsion, with no special consideration and no prior warning. So it behooves all of you to act with decorum and proper consideration of your classmates at all times,” she said strongly. And it was clear from her expression that she was furious, probably because it happened in her classroom, and no doubt she got chewed out by the Headmistress for not stopping it before it got to that point. That look of barely contained fury on her face made every single one of them as quiet as a drifting feather the rest of the day, and made all of them look very attentive as she continued the morning’s lesson.

It wasn’t the humiliation of being expelled, but it was still a pretty damaging position to be in, at least socially. Everypony in Canterlot would know that Nova was suspended from school for bullying his classmates, and even if he did manage to get through the entire year without getting expelled and earn his diploma, it would always be treated with some suspicion…and maybe a little bit of scorn. To act like that, to be suspended for bullying, that was a heavy mark against him in polite Canterlot society. Sure, there was plenty of insulting and remarks made against other ponies, but they were never, ever done so to that pony’s face. That was the ultimate in rudeness, in uncivilized, uncouth behavior. Some ponies would think that the only reason he managed to get his diploma at all was because of the connections of his parents, saving his rump by talking the Headmistress into at least allowing him to get his diploma. But it would always be a tainted accomplishment in the eyes of many in Canterlot, that he was so ill-mannered and boorish that he was very nearly expelled from school, and it was a shame that Nova may never live down.

It wasn’t until after class that the real rumors started flying, as well as quite a bit of ghoulish anticipation. The annual Harvest Ball was tonight, and it would usually be an event attended by all of Canterlot society. Everypony was wondering if Nova would be there, or his parents, and what they would say if they did attend.

She was going to rush home like the others to get ready for the ball, but she spotted Starjumper walking out of the library, a large stack of books floating beside him, suspended in his magic. She noticed that everypony was watching him, but not one was willing to go up and talk to him. Well, Summer Dawn wasn’t quite as afraid of him as everypony else. She trotted up to him and slowed down, looking over at him as he walked in resolute silence. “It’s all over school what happened,” she said. “And for what it’s worth, I think it’s not really fair they suspended you too. Nova started it.”

“It worked out perfectly for me,” he told her without looking over at her. “I’m being allowed to study on my own in the library, and when I come back to class, I'll be allowed to self-study while the rest of you work on that freezing spell. I'm hoping I can convince them to make me staying in the library permanent. I'll do much better studying on my own than being in that classroom. I get the feeling that Frostmane doesn’t like me.”

“She doesn’t like anypony,” Summer Dawn said lightly, which made the big, grumpy stallion glance over at her. “How do you know the Princess? Word is she intervened on your behalf.”

“I don’t,” he replied. “But she’s the one that ordered me to attend school here, so I guess she had to make sure I didn’t just go back home after all the work she had to do to get me here. I didn’t want to come, she had to resort to giving me a Royal command to get me here.”

“Wow, you must be really good at magic.”

“Not really,” he said modestly. “My father and sister are better magicians than me. I think I’m here because I’ve learned a few tricks my father taught me that just make it look like I’m really good at magic.”

"Well, that shrinking spell was pretty awesome," she complimented. "After seeing you cast that, quite a few ponies think that's why you're here. None of us know that spell."

"None of you grew up in a shop where your father needed your help, either," he replied mildly. "The magic I know is magic my father taught me to help out in the shop. I'm sure you know lots of magic I don't."

“Oh really? What other magic did your father teach you?” she asked in sudden interest. Summer Dawn loved magic, and despite her bad grades, she wanted to be a good magician. "Better than the shrinking spell you used on Nova? That was so cool!"

“Tricks I’m sure they’ve already taught you in that fancy school of yours,” he replied mildly.

“Oh, come on. Show me one of your tricks!” she said eagerly.

Starjumper’s eyes narrowed, and when Summer Dawn looked in the direction he was looking, he saw why. Nova was almost trotting towards him, with three of his friends in tow. And he looked livid. “I guess you’re going to see one now,” he said. “Princess Twilight told me if I got into it with Nova again, she’d throw both of us in the dungeon.”

The big stallion’s horn flared even brighter with golden magic, and that magic limned over his body. And then his hooves came up off the ground! He was levitating himself!

That was a seriously amazing trick! Levitation put the weight of the object on the caster of the spell, so if a pony tried to levitate herself, it just canceled itself out. The more magic she put into it, the more force it put on her, which kept her from getting off the ground. It was basic physics. The equal and opposite reaction of using magic to counter gravity was putting the force required to counter that gravity on the caster of the spell. So, trying to levitate one’s self just tired out a unicorn without her hooves ever leaving the ground. How did he learn how to get around that? And even more, if he had the strength to lift his own body weight, and that was a lot of weight given how big he was, then he had to have really strong magic!

“You can fly!” Summer Dawn blurted as he rose high up over the campus green. “Wow, that’s an awesome trick, Starjumper!” She gave a squeak of surprise when she was lifted up off the ground as well, and that surprised her even more. He was strong enough to pick up both of them? And the books he was carrying? Wow, he really was a powerful magician! No wonder the Princess made him come here, so he could learn really advanced magic! He pulled her up to where he was, nearly thirty feet over the campus green, and they started moving towards the small tower where his apartment was, so fast that a pony on the ground would have to gallop to keep up with them. “Celestia’s flowing mane, this is amazing!” she said brightly. “Teach me how to do this!”

“It’s not that hard,” he said mildly. “My father taught me. And you don’t even have to be strong enough to pick up your own weight. It’s basic levitation, just applied in a different way.”

“Really?”

He nodded. “I’m not picking us up so much as I’m pushing us away from the ground,” he explained. “Trying to pick yourself up won’t work, the force you’re applying just gets pushed down on you, so it cancels out. So instead of trying to pick yourself up, you instead push yourself off the ground, like if you’re jumping. It’s really a simple trick. I don’t understand why you haven’t learned it already.”

“Awesome! Can you teach me?”

“I just did,” he replied mildly. “That’s all there is to it. Well, outside of me using levitation to stabilize myself, so in a way, I am sorta levitating in the traditional sense. But I’m just using it to propel us forward while I use the other trick to get us off the ground. It’s a simple doublecast.”

Most of the ponies on the campus were staring up at them, and Nova and his three friends were trotting after them, clearly intending to confront them when they landed, but they were falling behind steadily since they didn't want to look like they were chasing him. Starjumper was taking them to his apartment, she could see, and she was almost disappointed when he landed them on the balcony attached to the side of the tower, which opened into his apartment. There was no way up there from the ground without coming through the apartment. “That was amazing!” Summer Dawn said excitedly after they landed, and then her horn limned over with pale pink magical energy. “Okay, so I push myself off the ground while I use levitation to steady myself?”

“More or less, yeah, that’s all there is to it,” he replied. “But it takes a little getting used to.”

“Alright, let’s try this.”

“Slowly. The first time I got it, I rocketed myself up and put a hole in the ceiling, on top of giving myself a concussion. My mom was not impressed,” he warned.

She laughed. “I can imagine. Okay, I push away from the ground.”

“Just like if you were levitating something and you want it to go higher, just apply it directly under yourself. Apply the force equally across your entire body, or you’re going to careen off in at an angle instead of going straight up. Once you’re off the ground, you can use basic levitation to direct your movements, or if you’re adventurous or want to go really fast, you can propel yourself forwards the same way you’re propelling yourself off the ground. But that’s really unstable and takes a lot of practice before you can do it without crashing. So use basic levitation at first.”

“Got it.” She directed her magic under her hooves, making sure to do what he said, exert that force equally across the entire aura of magic that surrounded her. She applied more magic, and more magic, and more magic, and then she felt herself shiver a little bit. Then, to her delight, her hooves came off the floor of his balcony! “I’m doing it!” she squealed in delight. “I’m doing it! I’m levitating myself!”

“Not bad,” he said calmly, giving a nod of approval. “And on your first try. You have some talent.”

“Thanks!” she said with a bright smile at him. “Okay, now how do I move forward?”

“Just pretend you’re an object you’re levitating and move it where you want it to go, but only use lateral motion, don't try to support yourself or you'll apply force against yourself and it will push you down. Remember to maintain your push off the ground at the same time. So it’s a doublecast,” he replied as he opened the balcony door and floated his books inside. “Just be careful. Since you’re not on the ground, you’re not anchored, so it’s going to make your levitation a bit erratic. And remember that since you’re not anchored, you have to work around equal and opposite reaction. If you try to push yourself forward, the force you apply also tries to push you back, so push from a fixed point rather than trying to push yourself."

“Okay, I think I can handle that,” she said, biting her lip a little bit as she divided her attention to doublecast. While maintaining the spell pushing her off the ground, she cast a simple spell of levitation over herself and tried to move herself forward, making sure that she didn’t try to push herself away from herself as if she were levitating an object. She instead pushed from a fixed point of reference behind her, which canceled out the equal and opposite reaction, an advanced technique of levitation she learned in school four years ago. She did so, far faster than she expected. “Whoaaooo!” she cried, careening across the deck and nearly crashing into the rail. But the pale pink magic around her was suddenly smothered by a golden aura, and she stabilized. Starjumper’s horn was glowing with golden energy when she looked over at him, and she gave a nervous laugh. “You did say it was erratic.”

“You’re not anchored, so just the barest nudge can send you flying, like trying to walk across wet ice,” he nodded. “It takes practice to get the hang of it. You have to be very subtle.”

“Subtle. Got it,” she said, his golden sheath of magic disappearing around her, leaving her pale rose-colored magic around her body. She started moving forward, much more slowly this time, then she came to a stop. She then slowly moved to the left, then to the right, and her smile grew wider and wider with every movement.

“Very good,” he said approvingly. “You’re a natural.”

“This is so awesome!” she gushed as she slowly crept backwards, then she rose up higher over the balcony…and then she lost it. She nearly fell off the balcony when she pushed too hard going forward, and that made her lose her concentration on the force keeping her aloft, causing her to suddenly drop. Her legs kicked and windmilled as she saw herself going over the railing, which would mean a long fall to the ground below, but she was again caught in his magic and brought to a stop.

“I think you’d better stay low enough to be inside the railing,” he said dryly.

“I think that’s a good idea,” she laughed ruefully in agreement.

For nearly an hour, he let her stay on his balcony and practice this new trick, until she got to the point where she felt comfortable with it...as long as she was going slow. She found that the faster she went, the more unstable it became, and that it would take hours of practice to get to where she could safely control herself going any faster than a brisk walk. He spent most of that time watching her, ready to intervene if she lost control, but eventually he gave over on his vigil and laid down on the balcony’s stone floor and read a book while she slowly and carefully flitted around. She practiced long enough to get a little tired, and put her hooves back on the balcony and nearly pranced up to him. “That was pretty amazing, Starjumper!” she said brightly. “Thank you so much for teaching me that trick!”

“It was nothing,” he shrugged without looking up at her. “Practice an hour or two a day for the next couple of weeks or so, and you’ll have it mastered.”

“Awesome! But I really need to thank you properly. Do you like parties? The Harvest Ball is tonight,” she offered. “How would you like to come?”

“I don’t do parties,” he told her evenly. “But thank you for the offer.”

“Well…how about I take you out to dinner tomorrow to thank you? There are a couple of really good restaurants in town. My treat,” she prompted.

He looked up at her. “Are you asking me out?”

“No! Not like that!” she retorted immediately, then she blushed. That made him chuckle, and she reacted by giving him an affronted glare.

“As long as it’s very clear that it’s just us going to go eat without any of that either implied or expected, then I accept,” he told her with a slight smile. “I don’t have the budget to eat out very much, so it’ll be nice to eat something I didn’t cook.”

“Then it’s an appointment. Not a date,” she said precisely, which made him look up at her lightly. “We’ll go to the Tasty Treat. It’s one of the best restaurants in Canterlot.”

“On one condition,” he added. “We have to go as soon as you get out of school. I have some important things to do tomorrow evening, so I have to be back home before sunset.”

“Not a problem,” she nodded. She walked over to the side of the rail and looked down. “Guess I can get down this way now,” she grinned, then her smile faded. “Uh oh.”

“Uh oh what?”

“Nova and his friends are still down there,” she said. “And now they know where you live.”

He got up and came over to the rail and looked down, his eyes narrowing. “He’s as dumb as he is petty,” he said darkly. “He was warned that he’d be expelled if he came anywhere near me.”

“I don’t think he cares. You don’t realize what you did to him.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, his reputation in Canterlot is in tatters right now,” she replied. “Now his father will punish him, severely, and given who he is, I don’t think he’s going to be able to go a whole year without getting in trouble. That means he’s going to eventually get expelled, I just know it. And that’s going to affect his entire life after school. He may not get a prestigious job in the palace after this, because what happened is always going to be there. The entire direction of his life was changed when he got suspended and put on probation. So, yeah, he’s probably mad enough not to care.”

“He cares that much about what other ponies think of him?" Starjumper snorted.

“In this town, Starjumper, you’d better care what other ponies think of you, because it can ruin your life,” she told him seriously. “Here, what other ponies think of you dictates almost everything you can do. If you have a bad reputation, you’re not getting a good job. You’re not getting a nice place to live, unless you can afford to buy it…and whoever’s selling it may not even offer to sell it to you. You’re not welcome in the better clubs and restaurants. And you’re not getting invited to any parties or other social engagements, and those are important if you want to get anywhere in this town. If your reputation is bad enough, you might all but be run out of town. Nova will have to live that down, and it may take years. It’s just a good thing that he has a very wealthy and powerful father, so he at least has a chance to get back in the good graces of the rest of Canterlot society. In the meantime, though, his reputation and social standing are ruined. He’ll spend the next few moons being denied the chance to go to parties, and most of his friends and social acquaintances will have nothing to do with him. Right now, he’s toxic. If that happened to me, I’d probably leave Canterlot altogether. I wouldn’t be able to bear the humiliation.”

“I knew there was a good reason to dread coming here,” he snorted. “Well, I’ll save him the further shame of being expelled.” His horn suddenly blazed with golden light, and to Summer Dawn’s amazement, a spherical shield of shimmering golden magic formed around the tower! It flared with light, a ripple of magical power flowing over its surface, and then it slowly dimmed until it was gone. The four stallions on the ground skittered backwards when the shield formed, and then Nova advanced up and was immediately rebuffed, staggering back when he walked into the shield. A pulse of visible golden magic skittered over the invisible shield from the contact, and then faded away. “There. Now he can’t get anywhere near the tower. And neither can anypony else.”

“Luna’s moon, you can cast a force field spell?” she asked in awe, looking up at him.

“Can’t you? Don’t they teach you anything in that school?” he replied sincerely. “My father taught me that spell last year, to make sure I could protect myself while I was out on my own.”

She gave him a surprised look. “You know way more magic than we do,” she admitted.

“Then I have even more reason to try to talk them into allowing me to study on my own in the library,” he snorted.

She gave him a speculative look. “Can you teach me how to do that spell?” she ventured.

“That’s an advanced spell. It would take time.”

“Well, I’ll pay you,” she offered. “You said you’re on a tight budget. I’ll pay you thirty gems a week if you teach me how to cast that spell. And I’ll pay for your dinner at a good restaurant twice a week, every Tuesday and Saturday, so you’re not eating soup all the time.”

“You’re serious,” he said, looking down at her.

“Completely,” she replied. “If I can cast a shield spell for the final, that extra credit might be what keeps me from flunking. They award bonus points for displaying mastery of advanced spells we learn on our own, and if I can cast a shield spell, that’s a lot of bonus points. And I’m gonna need every bonus point I can get.”

She watched as a few emotions played over his face, from speculation to…to fear, and then he looked down at her with intense eyes. “Three conditions,” he said.

“Well?”

“First. I teach you here, at the apartment,” he said, pointing a hoof at the balcony floor. “I don’t want an audience while I do this.”

“I can live with that.”

“Second. I teach you immediately after your classes, and when I say we’re done, we’re done. Some days we’ll work for several hours, some days we’ll only work for maybe one hour. I have a lot of my own work to do, and how much time I have to tutor you depends on how much of my own work I have.”

“That’s entirely fair.”

“Third. You never, ever, show up at my door uninvited,” he said intensely. “I’m a pony that values my privacy above all else, and nothing annoys me more than being interrupted when I’m studying. If for some reason you need to tell me something, you write a note and put it in the mailbox down at the base of the stairs. I’ll check the box every morning, and I’ll answer whatever questions you have when I see you in class.”

“Alright,” she said, a bit less enthusiastically. “When can we start?”

“Tomorrow,” he replied. “At least we start on the basics.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, I have to see what you already know so I know where to begin,” he answered. “I have no idea what they teach in that school. Shield spells are fairly advanced, so I have to see if you know the casting techniques to make sure you can properly cast the spell. I’m fairly sure you have the strength to do it, given how fast you were zipping around,” he said, giving her an assessing, speculative look. “Shield spells aren’t as demanding as you might think. It doesn’t take as much energy as you might expect to put a force field over this entire tower. The energy comes in making it last,” he said dryly. “The shield I set will only last about another half an hour, long enough to convince Nova to go away. Given the size of the tower, I doubt I could make one that would last more than three hours. I’d pass out trying to charge it any more than that.”

“Alright, but remember, we’re going to go out to eat tomorrow too,” she reminded him.

“Then we’ll make tomorrow a short session,” he replied. “I have to be back home before sunset. I have a lot of work to do.”

“That’s not a problem,” she said. “And I’m gonna have to go, I have to get ready for the Harvest Ball. My mom’s already gonna chew me out for being this late.”

“That’s fine, I have a lot of my own work to do,” he said. “You want to go out the door, or get down on your own?”

“I’ll get down on my own,” she said with an eager smile, her body limning over with pale pink magic, and then her hooves lifted up off the floor. “Tomorrow after my classes. Where will we meet?”

“I’ll be in the library, come get me there.”

“Alright then,” she said with a smile, rising higher up. “Uh, I can get out, right?”

He nodded. “The shield is directional. It only stops things coming in, it won’t stop you going out. Remember, subtle.”

“Subtle. Got it.” she nodded. “See you tomorrow, Starjumper. And thank you, you just may be what saves me from failing finals.”

“You’re welcome.”

She floated out over the railing, then lowered herself carefully to the ground, making sure to be very delicate and subtle in the direction of her magic. She managed to set her hooves down on the sidewalk leading to the stairs of his tower gently, then walked through the shield, which flared to visibility as she came through it. Nova and his three bully friends were still down there, and they came up to her as she walked down the sidewalk. “Don’t even talk to me, Nova,” she declared as she trotted along.

“Why were you up there? What were you doing with him?” he demanded.

“I told you not to talk to me,” she said, staring at him coolly. She was about to really let him have it, but Headmistress Roseglass was suddenly on the scene. There was a circular burst of red magic, and she was suddenly there. Roseglass could teleport, had mastered that powerful and highly coveted magic, and used it to get there in a heartbeat. And were so many students in school jealous of her accomplishment. Teleportation was the royal crown of magic, for only the strongest magicians could cast the spell. If a unicorn could teleport, then she was considered among the most respected unicorn magicians in Canterlot. Nova’s three stallion friends suddenly decided that they had better things to do and quickly scattered, leaving Nova alone to face the Headmistress.

“What is this?” she demanded. “Why are you here, Nova? You were specifically told to stay away from Starjumper!”

“I was talking to Summer Dawn,” he replied.

“He followed us here all the way from the Golden Dome, with his three friends,” Summer Dawn declared, using the name of the building where they had their classroom. “And Starjumper had to put a force field around his tower to keep Nova out. He didn’t want Nova to get expelled, so he put up the shield to keep him down here.”

“Is that so?” she asked, giving Nova a withering look. “You can’t even go a single day without breaking your word?”

“I just wanted to talk to Summer Dawn,” he said again, looking much more nervous now. “I wasn’t doing anything.”

“In my office. Now,” Roseglass said, glaring at Nova, pointing towards Old Main with her hoof. Shaken, his face almost ashen, Nova turned and stumbled towards Old Main.

“Please don’t expel him, Headmistress. Starjumper himself said he didn’t want it to happen,” Summer Dawn said, a tiny bit of compassion in her voice. "He was protecting Nova from himself."

She looked back at her, then gave a slight nod. “I’ll honor that, but I do think that Mister Nova could do with being banned from campus during his suspension, to give him time to cool off,” she said.

“That sounds fair to me,” she agreed.

Roseglass looked at her, then gave her a slightly approving look. “What are you doing here, anyway?”

“I made a deal with Starjumper. He’s going to tutor me in magic,” she answered. “He’s already taught me a new trick!” She then showed off a little bit by shrouding over her body in her pink magic, then her hooves lifted off the ground. “He taught me how to use levitation on myself! It’s a lot easier than I thought it would be!”

“An alternate use of levitation magic,” she nodded. “An advanced application of the spell. We don’t usually teach it to our students because it’s hard to control, and might result in injury.”

“Is it!” she laughed. “He used it after we left the library, and he taught me how to do it when I asked. It’s like trying to walk across wet ice once you get moving. But I’m getting the hang of it.”

“Just be careful learning how to control yourself, Miss Summer Dawn. It can be potentially dangerous,” she warned.

“Starjumper explained all that to me, and warned me to do all my practicing very close to the ground. I’ll be careful, Headmistress,” she nodded.

“But, I would suggest that you do master the technique. It will count as bonus points on your final,” she added with a slight smile.

“I won’t complain one bit, Headmistress. I can use all the bonus points I can get. That’s why I hired Starjumper to tutor me. He’s going to teach me how to cast a shield spell. I’m hoping that’s enough bonus points to make sure I don’t fail.”

“Depending on how much mastery you show over the spell, it just might,” she said speculatively. “Shield spells are very advanced, Miss Summer Dawn. It’s going to be very difficult for you to learn.”

“Starjumper said it may take a couple of moons,” she answered, lowering back down to the ground.

“Well, I wish you luck, Miss Summer Dawn,” she said with a slight nod. “If you’ll excuse me, I need to take care of Mister Nova.”

“Yeah, I need to go get ready for the Harvest Ball,” she agreed.

She left Roseglass and campus, and she felt…hopeful. Weirdly hopeful. If Starjumper really could teach her how to do shield spells, it would all but lock her graduation, which was definitely not a given. Just two days into the term, and she was already completely lost in class. If she could scrape out at least a few points in the written test, do well in the practicals, and earn enough bonus points with both her self-levitation and shield spells, then she would graduate. She wouldn’t embarrass herself, she wouldn’t embarrass her parents, she wouldn’t embarrass her family name.

And for her, who had struggled so much through school since seventh grade, the idea of not having a complete panic attack with finals looming on the horizon made her feel better than she had all summer.

She might even enjoy herself at the ball tonight.

He wasn’t so sure this was a good idea.

On silent wings, Starjumper ghosted over the city of Canterlot, the stars a blanket laid across the sky above and with the moon not far over the horizon behind him. Flying always let him clear his head, think things over…and he wasn’t so sure that he’d made the right decision today.

It was all about the money. Starjumper would have rejected that mare’s offer outright if not for the enticement of being paid, and paid a lot. He was living on a very tight budget, barely able to afford any luxuries or amenities, and the allure of having money to buy extra books, of being able to eat two restaurant meals a week, it had been too much. He’d just have to make sure that having that filly around him in the afternoons didn’t cause him any problems.

The fact that that little white-coated filly was cute had absolutely nothing to do with it. Nothing at all.

Nope. Not a single thing.

He was still fairly convinced that she was a relative of the retired supermodel, Fleur de Lis. She had the same muzzle, the same eyes, the same long legs and slender, long body, and if her mane was a darker shade of pink, she’d be the mirror image of the mare.

Still, having her around him was going to cause some problems, problems he’d have to deal with if he wanted those gems. He’d have to keep a very tight control of when she was in his apartment, and he’d have to keep his private journals out of view when she was around. And he’d have to keep very close track of time, to make sure she was out of the apartment well before sunset.

That was one side of it. The other side was her magical abilities. He was fairly sure she had the magical strength to cast a shield spell, they actually didn’t take as much magic as most unicorns thought, but the trick was going to be teaching her how to cast the spell. It was advanced magic, it wasn’t as easy as casting a levitation spell or a light spell. It required a strong grasp of magic and magical theory, to understand how magic worked on a fundamental level so she could harness it and shape it into its desired effect. Granted, she was in the most prestigious magic school in Equestria, so there was a fairly good chance that she either already knew what she needed to know, or would be able to pick it up quickly with her prior education.

Banking on his large wings, he followed the edge of the city, curling around the outer edge and back towards the mountainside. Below, quite a few well-dressed ponies were converging on what the largest house in the city that wasn’t the palace, a huge mansion set on a large lawn enclosed by an ornate iron fence, which set in the corner of Canterlot. The grounds were against the mountainside at the back of the city, and one of the streams that fell from the mountain above cascaded down into a pool of water inside the fence, then meandered across the grounds with several bridges crossing it and then flowed under the fence, heading for the other end of the city to drop from the edge down into the abyss below. That, he’d learned from Donut Joe, was a mansion known as the Waterfalls, one of the oldest manors in the city, and owned by the richest pony in Canterlot, Fancy Pants. At least the richest non-royal pony, anyway The wealth of Princess Celestia and Princess Luna defied all rational terms, given they’d had thousands of years to amass it. The Harvest Ball was an annual event, he’d learned, one of three events held in the Waterfalls each year and considered one of the most prestigious social events of the year. Only the Garden Party and the Grand Galloping Gala were bigger events in Canterlot than the Harvest Ball.

Curious at the silliness of Canterlot unicorns, he swooped down and landed on the side of the wall of a large rowhouse across the street from the fence, clinging sideways to the bricks just under the lip of the roofline, then he put the end of his tail up against the underhang of the lip and let go with his hooves, dangling with his back nearly against the wall by his tail. He wrapped his wings around himself to keep them out of mischief and hung upside down, watching the elite of Canterlot file through the open gates and onto the grounds. Most of them were unicorns, but there were earth ponies and pegasi among them as well, all of them dressed in expensive tuxedo coats and gowns. He spied the stallion himself standing at the door to his manor, the unicorn Fancy Pants. He was a light-coated unicorn with a dark, styled mane and wearing a formal tuxedo coat and with a monacle over one eye. Beside him stood Fleur de Lis in a yellow gown with a long train, and he realized after watching them a moment that she was his wife.

Wait a minute.

He nearly gasped when he made the connection. And as if to prove it, Summer Dawn stepped out of the mansion and greeted one of the younger fillies that was coming up the steps, wearing a soft pale pink gown that nearly matched the color of her mane. So she was Fancy Pants’ daughter? Good Celestia, no wonder she was willing to pay him so much for tutoring, she could certainly afford it! She was the daughter of the richest pony in Canterlot! There was no doubt, watching her interact with her parents, exactly who she was.

What a world. He, the stallion that hated high society nonsense, was going to be tutoring the most socially connected filly in school.

But, he had to give her some credit. He’d had no idea who she was until that moment, when he saw her with her parents. She hadn’t bragged about her social standing, nor had she bragged about her wealth. She’d acted quite, well, quite normal that afternoon, coming across more as an exuberant, energetic, curious young mare more than some snooty high society debutante. And her worry over failing her finals certainly didn’t make her come across as some smug primadonna who thought she was better than everypony else. That admission, that worry, made her seem much more, well, real, like he was seeing the real her, not some aire that she put on when around other ponies. So, he could at least give her points for that. He’d just have to make it abundantly clear that she was there to talk about magic, and nothing else.

He watched for a moment, until Summer Dawn looked almost directly at him, and her gaze didn’t shift. He was pretty far away from her, and his dark coat and mane blended in with the darkness to the point where he was very hard to see unless he moved, but she was clearly looking right at him. He could give a few more points for seeing him, for noticing him, but he wasn’t concerned at all that she might recognize him. He was over a block away from her and he was shrouded in darkness, from that distance he was nothing but a small smudge of discolored night to a pony’s day-sighted eyes.

His eyes. She was seeing the reflection of the streetlights below him in his eyes. Much like a cat’s eyes, his eyes would take on a glowing quality if a pony looked at them in certain light conditions and at the right angle. Since his eyes didn’t change when he was either a unicorn or a thestral, his eyes could see in all but total darkness as well as a pony could see in broad daylight, even in the daylight hours. The light of the stars above was more than enough to paint the city if Canterlot in brilliant light and vibrant colors to his nocturnal eyes. His other senses were just as sharp, just as sensitive, with ears that could hear the scratching of a mouse in a field twenty feet away, and a nose so sensitive that he could identify animals, plants, and other objects by their smell alone.

His were the senses of a nocturnal predator…because that was exactly what he was.

It was one of the greatest secrets of the thestrals, the one truth they kept hidden from the ponies of Equestria. Thestrals were omnivores. They ate both plants and animals, and while his mother had taught him how to hunt when he was younger, she had forbidden them from eating any animals in Equestria due to the special bond between the wildlife of the realm and the ponies that lived in it. After going so long since eating meat, Starjumper had honestly lost his taste for it…though he did like fish.

The fangs in his mouth were not vestigial.

He spread his wings and put his hooves on the wall, then pushed off from it and vaulted up into the air. A single stroke propelled him up over the roofs of the rowhouses as he banked away from the Waterfalls, which would make him all but invisible to the ponies on the manor. Best not to tempt fate. Besides, he had a lot of reading to do tonight, an assignment to finish for both the school and for Princess Twilight, so he’d best get back to the apartment and get started. There was a lot he needed to learn over the next year, before he lost access to the school library and had to pay for spells once again. He already had the formula for the gemfinding spell copied out of one of the library spellbooks, and he needed to get that spell learned.

Though…he didn’t have the same urgency now as he did this morning. With the thirty gems a week coming in from Little Miss Rich Filly, he could learn the gemfinding spell at his leisure. With proper budgeting, he could live comfortably off that tutoring income and still put back quite a reserve fund and live off of that after he left Canterlot. That would buy him a house full of furniture, quite a few books he could put in his private library, when he found a place to settle down.

Maybe...maybe this was a good idea after all.

It was a warm, glorious night in the Everfree Forest. The untamed animals of that wild region were calling into the night, frogs croaking, crickets chirping, and the night-dwelling ones were slipping through the darkness with practiced quiet, mere shadows shimmering in the darkness as they went about their nightly business.

There was light in that wild darkness, however. The ruins of the Castle of the Two Sisters had uncharacteristic light emanating from several windows up on the second floor of the ruins, the windows long ago having lost their glass, which allowed the cool night breeze to filter into the broken building. The light was coming from the old library, and the light shining through those gaping holes in the stone wall flickered and shimmered as two ponies within moved around, casting shadows showing through the portals.

With a flick of her tail, Princess Luna paced back and forth in front of a reading table as her sister, Princess Celestia, sat at it, a globe of glowing magic providing light as she read from an ancient, musty tome. A bookshelf behind her had been pulled to the side to reveal a hidden chamber, and a stand within showed from where that book had been taken. It was clear to anypony who looked at her that Princess Luna was unsettled, even nervous, and the look of concentration on Princess Celestia’s lovely face showed that she too was not quite as calm and sedate as she appeared.

“Calmly, sister,” she called reassuringly as Luna passed her yet again. “This isn’t easy to read as you may think. I must admit, my Old High Ponish is quite rusty.”

“I know, sister. I—you know.”

“I do know,” she nodded, her long multicolored mane shivering. She still hadn’t gotten used to the fact that magic no longer kept it suspended, and its weight on her head and neck was surprisingly uncomfortable sometimes. “Here. Here it is,” she said, which made Luna hurry over to the table and look down at the book, standing where Celestia was sitting, and that fact put their heads at the same level. “In the darkness of a curse of ages past brought forth into the present will the Child of Sun and Moon be revealed. In the golden glow of the eyes of the Child of Sun and Moon will the Morning Rose bloom and grow. In the heat of battle between the Child of Sun and Moon and the Dusk Violet will she join with him and the Morning Rose and form the Trinity. In the shadow of the past cast across eons will the sun and moon call upon the Trinity to protect them from the King of Darkness.”

“And that’s the entire prophecy?” Luna asked.

“Unfortunately so, sister,” she sighed. “As I feared, the copy we have is a faithful reproduction of the original. There is nothing new here for us to learn. I fear that the exact meaning of the passages won’t become clear until after what the prophecy predicts come to pass.”

“I still do not believe we allowed Twilight and Starlight talk us into this!” Luna said, moving away from the table and pacing again. “We should be the ones in the palace, facing this danger!”

“We all agreed that it was best if you and I were in a position to act swiftly and without other responsibilities once the King of Darkness reveals himself, sister,” Celestia soothed. “And we both know who that must be.”

“Sombra,” Luna declared, to which Celestia nodded.

“It says much of Twilight and Starlight’s courage that they would stand in our stead and risk themselves this way.”

“They are bait. Let us not call them anything but what they are,” Luna nearly seethed.

“And yet they entered into this willingly, fully understanding the danger posed to them,” Celestia reasoned. “And was it not Twilight that proposed this plan? We did not force them, sister. We all agreed that her plan was the best course of action, and in her plan, Twilight and Starlight are taking our places and facing a danger meant for us while we stay in the background, ready to move swiftly when the danger reveals itself. And believe me, sister, I will do whatever it takes to make sure she and Starlight are safe,” she said firmly.

“Well said, sister,” Luna agreed strongly. “And what of Twilight's letter?”

“My suspicions were correct,” Celestia answered, picking up the letter from the table with her magic. “I suspected the meaning of the first passage and sent her to Baltimare, to investigate Starjumper Astra. He is a Lykan, sister. It is the most convincing argument that could be made that he is the Child of Sun and Moon. Twilight's letter confirms my suspicion. She is convinced that he is the one.”

Luna looked over at her, her eyes sober. "The Curse."

"The Curse," she nodded. "Twilight had arranged to have Starjumper stay in her old school apartment, and has taken him on as a student of sorts to gauge his skill with magic, just not doing so directly, so as not to alert him. It is quite clever, how she has arranged this,” Celestia said with approval in her voice. “She is certain that he is the one. And the prophecy states that he will lead us to the Morning Rose and the Dusk Violet, so now that we have found him, we need only wait and he will find the others for us. We must bring them together as quickly as we can,” she said evenly. “They must be ready to stop Sombra before whatever plan he is hatching comes to fruition.”

“Well, it is something,” Luna grunted, turning and walking back the other way. “A Lykan. There hasn't been a Lykan since before Nightmare Moon was banished to the moon."

"The darkness of a curse of ages past brought into the present," Celestia nodded, repeating the first line of the prophecy as she gave her sister a slightly pained look. Even now, over three decades since Luna was freed from the moon and purged of the darkness of Nightmare Moon by Twilight and her friends, that was a painful subject for Celestia. "And that has the thestrals very, very nervous. They see him as a dire threat to everything they are."

"I know the old myth, sister. I'm surprised you intervened. I'm even more surprised they agreed to the treaty."

"I was not about to let them murder a newborn foal in our realm, sister," she said sternly. "And it took quite a bit of doing to wrangle an agreement out of the Night King. I had to make some very extravagant promises to keep Starjumper within the borders of Equestria. And he knows he cannot leave Equestria, or the treaty will be voided. Nightsong was quite diligent in teaching him the reality of his situation when it comes to the thestrals."

"What will we do when we find the others?”

“Nothing,” she replied. “The prophecy states that only in the golden glow of the eyes of the Child of Sun and Moon will the Morning Rose bloom and grow, and we must not interfere in the conflict that brings Starjumper and the Dusk Violet together. We step back and allow things to happen naturally. Twilight agrees, and I for one am inclined to agree with someone that agrees with me.”

Luna gave a slightly irked glance, then gave a low chuckle, seeing the subtle joke for what it was. “Did the letter mention any leads in that regard?”

“Only one. Twilight learned just hours ago that Starjumper has agreed to tutor a young mare named Summer Dawn in magic. Twilight has looked into this young mare, but is not sure if she is the one. She writes that she will investigate further.”

“I remember her from last year’s Grand Galloping Gala, Fancy Pants introduced her,” Luna mused. “And her name does hint that she may be the Morning Rose.”

“Twilight is not certain that she is. Her grades in school are lackluster, at best, and the young mare’s teachers have informed her that Summer Dawn is simply not very good at magic. It seems that her parents called in quite a few favors to place her in my school,” she said, clucking her tongue in disapproval. “I will have a long talk with the headmistress about entry requirements when I return to my duties, of that you can be certain.”

“This is not the time for vanity, sister,” Luna joked, giving her a weak but encouraging smile. “And what of the Dusk Violet?”

She sighed. “Twilight has no idea,” she replied. “The prophecy states that the first meeting between the Dusk Violet and Starjumper will be a battle…but a battle over what? It might not be an actual battle, it might refer to a game, or a competition of some sort. The Dusk Violet may be a school rival, or they very well may actually fight the first time they meet. Thus far, Starjumper has run into conflict with another unicorn in the school, a young stallion named Nova. But the prophecy is clear in that regard, the Dusk Violet is a mare, so it cannot be him.”

“A cryptic passage,” Luna complained. “It could mean nearly anything.”

“I know. Either way, Twilight will be there to keep a close eye on things,” Celestia said calmly, closing the book, turning, and lifting it with her magic and setting it back on the stand in the secret room. The bookshelf rotated back into place, concealing it from view, then she turned to regard her sister. “There is nothing more we can learn here, sister,” she declared. “Do you intend to return to your vigil?”

“Yes, sister,” she replied. “If Sombra approaches, I may be able to sense it, either here or in the realm of dreams.”

Celestia gave a single nod. “Then I will return to my task as well,” she announced. “Perhaps the Oracle of The Ebon Peak will be able to find out more about how Sombra has managed to return, and where he is hiding. Sombra should be gone, but somehow, some way, he has returned. If we can learn how, perhaps we can put a stop to this before he becomes a threat. After all, the prophecies in that tome are of the possible, not the destined. They are warnings of possible trouble in the future. It would not be the first time we have thwarted one of the prophecies by deciphering its meaning and acting swiftly before it can come about.”

“That is a long journey, sister.”

“I know,” she replied, ruffling her wings. “With luck, I can be back in Equestria by the beginning of the next moon.” She stepped up and put a hoof over Luna’s neck, then gave her a gentle, warm hug. “Warn Twilight and Starlight I will be away for some time. And be careful in your vigil, my sister.”

“Good journey and good luck, my sister,” Luna returned. “Be careful as well.”

“I will,” she promised. She turned away, and then in a golden flash of magical energy, Celestia vanished from the ancient library. Luna sighed, then turned and walked away as the magical globe of light Celestia conjured with her magic began to fade. The wavering shadows played across Luna’s slender frame, and in the blink of an eye between one waver and the next, Luna melted away into the night.

Back in the library, behind the hidden bookcase, upon its crumbling pedestal, the book from which the Royal Sisters were reading suddenly glowed with bright magical light. It opened of its own volition, the pages turning, turning, turning past the page holding the prophecy they had come to read, turning, turning, until the book came to rest on the final page of the book. On the lone blank page opposite the back cover, magical runes burned themselves into the page.

In the darkness of a curse of ages past brought forth into the present will the Child of Sun and Moon be revealed.

In the golden glow of the eyes of the Child of Sun and Moon will the Morning Rose bloom and grow.

In the heat of battle between the Child of Sun and Moon and the Dusk Violet will she join with him and the Morning Rose and form the Trinity.

In the breaking of an innocent heart will the Child of Sun and Moon succumb to the darkness of his curse and rise as the Unmaker.

The book flared with brilliant light, and then closed of its own volition and returned the hidden alcove into silent darkness.

A Lesson and a Revelation

He had to admit, the Tasty Treat really was a fantastic restaurant.

It was one of the oldest restaurants in Canterlot, enduring over twenty years in its location at the end of a small alley off Restaurant Row, nearly hidden…if not for the steady line of ponies coming in and out. Its interior was rustic, dim, with bright colors and comfortable benches, and the smells in the place were nearly heavenly, even when he didn’t have his thestral sense of smell. The place was run by an exotic unicorn matron named Saffron and her daughter Curry, and Saffron’s retired father Coriander was almost always in residence in the restaurant, sitting at a small table near the door.

The smells were amazing, but the food even more so. He had never tasted anything like the food there, which was both spicy and textured, with bold sauces and broths, smooth pastas and noodles, hearty breads and rolls, and brown long-grained rice.

He still wasn't sure exactly why he agreed to this. At first it was purely for the food, for a nice meal, but now he had a different motive. He'd agreed to tutor this mare, and despite his usual intention to be alone, he wanted to know a little bit more about her, to see if he could manage to spend extended periods of time with her. Besides, he had this strange feeling that there was a secret lurking behind her charming smile, and he'd learned over his lifetime to trust those feelings. They rarely steered him wrong.

“So, what do you think?” she asked him, looking over at him across the small round table.

“We don’t have anything like this in Baltimare,” he replied, savoring a mouthful of what Curry called flat noodle soup. The perky young unicorn with exotic eyes had all but flirted with him when she took his order. “Most ponies there think that the only spices that exist are salt and pepper. And pepper is almost too daring and bold.”

She laughed. “Sounds like a pretty boring place. I think I’m glad I’ve never been there.”

“It’s a great place if you love bricks,” he said dryly. “That’s what Baltimare is famous for, and the earth ponies there are proud of it. Most bricks in Equestria are made in Baltimare. Right now, the brick season is about to wind down, so the yards are all rushing to get as many made as they can before winter. They can’t make bricks in the winter, so most ponies in town use the winter months to get most everything else done before they can go back to the brickyards in spring.”

“Is that what your shop does? Sell to the brickyards?”

He shook his head. “We own a general store, selling general merchandise and food to the ponies,” he answered. “It’s busy all year round.”

“Are there a lot of unicorns there? I thought Baltimare was an earth pony town.”

“It is,” he replied. “My family are the only unicorns in the entire river district. I think there’s only ten unicorn families in the entire town.”

“Wow. That’s way different from here. Canterlot is a unicorn town.”

“It feels a bit weird walking down the street and not being the only unicorn,” Starjumper mused.

“No wonder they made you come here, given how much you know about magic. If there’s so few unicorns there, then they don’t have any magic schools.”

He nodded. “I learned everything I know about magic from my father,” he told her. “Our family has been collecting books on magic since they moved to Baltimare five generations ago. It was that private library and my father that taught me everything I know.”

“It must be pretty big, given how much magic you know.”

“It fits in a single bookshelf,” he told her. “Books and scrolls about magic and holding spells are very expensive, especially outside Canterlot. Each generation can only afford to buy three or four books to add to the library, and it’s something of a tradition for each member of the family to contribute at least one new spell to the library for our descendants to learn. My brother was the one that contributed the shield spell. I've already contributed mine,” he said, a bit proudly. “I wanted to get it before I left home, because I knew I wouldn’t be staying in Baltimare. That way, my contribution to the family library is already taken care of.”

“What spell did you add?”

“Teleportation,” he answered.

Her eyes widened. “You can teleport?’

“I didn’t learn it,” he lied carefully…well, it wasn’t a complete lie. He hadn’t learned the teleport spell from that book, that was true enough. For that matter, he didn't buy the book, he wrote it, leaving behind a comprehensive guide for his sister to learn the spell without him being there to tutor her. His father had already taken advantage of both the book and Starjumper's expertise on the subject, and he'd learned how to cast the spell just before Starjumper left for Canterlot. After everything his father taught him, Starjumper felt it was only right that he was able to teach his father at least one spell. His father could cast it, but he had a lot more to learn. With more practice, his father would gain mastery of the spell. “I got the book because my father and sister can cast it. They’re both really, really strong magicians, much stronger than I am. So it’s there for my sister once she learns more about magic. My father already learned the spell, but I mainly got it for my sister.”

“Wow, that was a really nice thing to do. So, your father can teleport?"

"He can now," he nodded. "But the book is mainly for my sister. She's going to be an even stronger magician than my father is."

"You must really love your sister to get her a book like that.”

“Dancer is a total sweetheart,” he told her. “And I admit, I did read the book. But it didn’t help me.” Again, not completely a lie. It didn't help him because he wrote it. He already knew everything in it.

“Well, you could always try again later.”

“I have a copy of it,” he said mildly. “Maybe some day.”

She chuckled softly. “Thinking ahead is never a bad idea.”

“So, what about you? What’s it like being the daughter of a supermodel?”

She gave him a surprised look. “Who told you Fleur de Lis is my mom?”

“I’m the son of a shopkeeper, Summer Dawn,” he said evenly. “I’ve seen your mother’s face plastered all over half the merchandise in my dad’s shop. You look so much like her you could pass for her if you dyed your mane a darker shade of pink.”

She laughed. “I’ll take that as the complement it is,” she said lightly, being compared to the beauty of a supermodel. “And it’s not nearly as glamorous as you might think. Mom never acts like a model at home. She always says that after a long day of acting like a lady, the last thing she wants to do is act like one behind a closed door. It was my mom that always played in mud puddles with me, or caught frogs with me on the streambank.”

Starjumper had to chuckle. “I guess that makes a kind of sense, though I can’t imagine a supermodel jumping in a mud puddle.”

“Mom is a tomcolt at heart,” she said with a smile. “My dad’s the prissy one,” she winked. “Cultured, urbane, won’t come within ten strides of mud, and afraid of sleeping in a tent outside because it might look undignified,” she said with a grin.

He laughed. “He sounds stuffy.”

“He’s just a bit eccentric, that’s all,” she replied. “He’s got a great sense of humor, and loves to play pranks on us and the staff. Nopony ever feels safe in our house,” she grinned.

He laughed again. “Really?”

“Yeah. Last week, he put exploding caps in the flour jar. And let me tell you, Withers was not happy,” she said. “He buried them in the flour, so when they went off, whoosh,” she exclaimed, throwing her hooves up. “There was flour all over the kitchen. Withers was so mad, he made dad clean it all up.”

Starjumper laughed brightly, trying to imagine some social paragon like Fancy Pants skulking around that huge mansion, setting traps for his family and servants. It did put him in an entirely different light, that was for sure. “My mom might do something like that, but never my dad,” Starjumper mused.

“Is your mom the bat pony, or your dad?”

“My mom,” he replied.

“Is she much different from other ponies?”

“A little,” he admitted. “But you wouldn’t have any trouble talking to her. She’s lived in Equestria for coming on twenty years. But she’s definitely a little different, because she grew up in the Nightlands.”

“Where’s that?”

“It’s the homeland of the thestrals, across the eastern sea,” he answered, then noticed her quizzical look. “Thestrals are what bat ponies call themselves. Only Equestrian ponies call them bat ponies.”

“How did your parents meet?”

“Dad went to the Nightlands to try to buy some of their tapestries to sell in the shop, you know, to bring something new and exotic to Baltimare,” he answered. “That was back when my grandfather was running it, Dad was his roving agent that bought things. He met Mom there, and she came back with him. Dad always jokes that the only thing of value he brought back was Mom. The tapestries didn’t sell at all, at least there. Dad sold them to a Canterlot merchant, and I guess he sold them here.”

She laughed. “Yeah, they’d probably sell here if they looked nice. So ponies could point to them on the wall and just happen to mention in passing that they were rare and valuable bat pony tapestries,” she agreed. “Something like that would be a status statement.”

“Baltimare ponies don’t care about that, which is why I guess they didn’t sell,” he shrugged. “Anyway, we’d better finish up if we’re going to get any work done today.”

They finished their excellent meal and returned to the apartment. They set up down in the common room, which was large and very open and well lit with its large windows, and he started quizzing her about magic…and was a bit disappointed. It was clear that she wasn’t a very good student of magic, because she had serious trouble answering his questions. But, when he asked her to demonstrate the spells she knew, he was completely thrown for a loop.

Summer Dawn was a powerful magician.

He could sense it as she cast several spells. She had immense raw ability, and it was only by that raw power that she was casting the spells, since she wasn’t using the advanced magical techniques to cast the spells she was using. She’d been taught those techniques, but she didn’t use them. She was using her immense strength to just bull through it, making it happen, throwing so much magic at the spell that she made it go off, something that a lesser spellcaster would have no hope to duplicate.

Good Celestia, how did her teachers not see this? Why weren’t they teaching her how to use this immense power? And how in Luna’s moon was she failing in school, with this much raw ability? She was far stronger than he was, and yet she was barely scraping through school and was afraid she’d fail her final exam?

How?

He didn’t let his surprise show, holding it back using the stoic calm he’d cultured over his many years of hiding his secrets, just walking her through the spells to see what she knew. She knew the basics of spellcasting, but didn’t really know how to use the advanced spellshaping techniques—or more to the point, she didn’t use them because she could cast the spells without them, something Starjumper could not do himself. She had a firm grasp on channeling, but didn’t know how to charge very well…and again, that was because of her power. She had trouble restricting the amount of magic she charged into a lingering spell, overcharging it and making it go haywire. And to his delight, she had a highly imaginative mind and a very good memory, which were almost mandatory for advanced spellcasting. There was a great deal of imagination involved in advanced magic, for being able to imagine something was a basis for quite a few advanced spells, including shield spells. She had to be able to imagine, envision the shield’s dimensions in order to cast it efficiently, defining them in her mind as she built the matrix that brought the spell about.

He couldn’t believe what he'd walked into here, and her raw power honestly intimidated him. He was no professional teacher. He had experience teaching a magic spell when he taught his father how to teleport, but his father already knew more about magic than Starjumper did, so it was fairly easy to do. Summer Dawn was like his sister, with incredible raw ability that was unformed, unrealized. For Dancer, it was because she was so young, had only just begun her magical education. But for Summer Dawn, it had some other reason. Maybe she was a bad student and just hated to learn…which he doubted, given her honest curiosity and interest in magic. So there had to be something else going on here.

After she demonstrated the last spell for him, the most advanced spell she knew, she gave him a strange look as he stood there, staring at her. “What?”

He didn’t say anything for a long moment. “What’s the one spell you’ve always wanted to learn?” he asked her impulsively. “The spell you’ve always dreamed of being able to do?”

“Duh, teleportation,” she replied immediately. “Every unicorn in school dreams of being able to do what Professor Frostmane and Headmistress Roseglass can do. Both of them can cast the spell.”

“And if you could cast that spell, you’d pass?”

“I’d pass even if I didn’t so much as put my name on the written final,” she replied.

Starjumper turned a bit to the side, his horn limning over in a soft golden glow. A book pulled from the shelf and floated over to them, and he brought it to a stop in front of her. “This is a copy of the book I bought that explains teleportation and holds the spell. I want you to read this book,” he told her.

“Why?”

“Because I think you can cast it,” he answered immediately and forcefully. “No. I know you can cast it.”

“Wait, what? You’re serious?”

“Deadly,” he replied with sober eyes and a stoic expression. “If you want to learn how to teleport, I can teach you. I am positive that you can cast the spell. But there’s a condition.”

“What is that?”

“You don’t tell anypony that I’m teaching you how to teleport,” he replied with an intense gaze. “If your teachers and parents find out what you’re learning from me, they’ll make you stop. They’ll tell you it’s too dangerous and it’s magic that’s far beyond you. Well, they’re wrong,” he declared in a powerful voice. “Tell them I’m teaching you shield spells, and I will be teaching them to you as part of the process of learning how to teleport. Learning to cast shield spells will help you when the time comes, because of the spellcasting techniques you have to learn to do shield spells apply to teleportation spells.”

“Alright, I can do that.” She then gave him a sly look. “This wouldn’t be about extending your tutoring to get more gems, would it?” she asked playfully.

“You don’t have to pay me a gem until after you learn the spell,” he answered immediately. “That should tell you how serious I am.”

“If you can teach me to teleport, I’ll pay you a five hundred gem bonus on top of thirty gems a week,” she retorted immediately.

“Done,” he replied. “By the first day of spring, Summer Dawn, you will be able to teleport. I guarantee it.”

The aura of magic around the book changed from gold to pink, as she took command of it, and she set it on the desk next to her saddlebag. “It’s, it’s not complicated, is it?” she asked.

“What do you mean?”

“Have a bunch of long, complicated words? I don’t read very well,” she admitted, blushing a tiny bit.

“It’s an advanced book, Summer Dawn,” he told her.

“Oh. Oh well, I guess I’ll do my best,” she said. “As long as you can explain the parts of it I don’t understand.”

“I can do that. But, to warn you, the deal doesn’t change outside of that. I’ll teach you to teleport, but we’ll be doing it when I have time to teach you, and you have to respect my privacy when I’m not teaching you.”

“That’s fair. And I’ll still pay for your two meals a week at the Tasty Treat, whether I’m with you or not,” she offered. “I’ll talk to Saffron and have her set up a tab for you. Just don’t get too crazy,” she smiled.

“That’s kind of you,” he told her.

“I’m getting my gems’ worth, that’s for sure,” she replied. “And since you’re not throwing me out, you must have time, so I guess I’ll get started on this book so you’re here to explain anything I don’t get.”

“Fair enough. I’m going to work on something else. Just ask if you have any questions.”

By the end of the hour, Starjumper fully understood just why Summer Dawn was in the position she was in, and why she was having so much trouble in school.

Summer Dawn couldn’t read.

It floored him when she asked him a question, and he asked her to read the passage out of the book. She couldn’t read. She had trouble recognizing words, even letters, and struggled to read the first paragraph in the book. How in Equestria did she get this far in school without the ability to read her textbooks?

Her power, that was how.

After more investigation into the problem without coming out and telling her he could see that she was illiterate, he instead found that she had a very specific problem, a problem that he had seen before, because his brother suffered the same problem. Silver Moon confused words and letters with others, there was some fundamental issue with the way he interpreted what he was seeing that made him unable to discern one letter from another in the Ponish alphabet. It had crippled him in school, to the point where Starjumper had all but gotten him through, reading everything aloud to him. That problem did not make Silver Moon dumb, that was for sure. He was incredibly smart, and so long as Starjumper was there to help him with the reading assignments, he got very good grades in school. He just had this strange problem being able to decipher words on a page.

Summer Dawn had the exact same problem, and he could tell that it had haunted her for most of her life. Silver Moon had originally felt worthless, stupid, inadequate compared to other ponies, because his inability to read made him feel like there was something wrong with him. It made him introverted, had made him struggle not just with school, but with making friends with his schoolmates, terrified they’d find out he couldn’t read.

It explained everything. It explained why she was doing so badly in school despite being so talented. It explained why her teachers couldn’t see the truth of her, if Frostmane was any indication of what the teachers in the school were like. Summer Dawn would constantly ask basic questions based on the bookwook, which would exasperate her teachers to the point where they would think she was lazy, that she wasn’t doing her work and trying to get the teachers to explain everything to her. He’d bet that instead of trying to find out why she was asking those questions, they would harangue her for her pestering, teaching her from an early age that she would get no help from her instructors, teach her not to ask questions.

Standing there by the desk as she struggled to read that paragraph, Starjumper felt…felt something change. He, he couldn’t leave things like this. He felt a personal involvement here because of his brother. He’d seen how his problem had affected his brother’s life, and…and he couldn’t just leave this alone. He wasn’t going to let the same thing happen to Summer Dawn. Silver Moon had always had his little brother there to help him, to get him through school, to make him feel like he wasn’t worthless or stupid. He’d always had his little brother there who understood, who understood his problem and helped him learn how to cope with it.

And now, sitting at the desk beside him, was another pony with the same problem. And he could not turn his back on her.

And he had no idea why he felt so strongly about this when he barely knew this mare. Starjumper stayed away from other ponies, he actively avoided making friends because of the secrets he had to keep…but he couldn’t let this be. While Summer Dawn seemed to have a healthy social life with lots of friends, much unlike his brother, it was still there, and he would bet that it would make her ego very fragile. She would always feel lesser than other ponies because she couldn’t read, made her feel inadequate, inferior, which she hid behind a bubbly smile and an extroverted, friendly personality.

And knowing this about her, now he knew exactly how to go about teaching her.

“Stop. Stop,” he ordered, using his magic to close the book. “Forget about the book.”

“Why?”

“Because you’re a doer, not a reader,” he said carefully. “You’re like my brother. He learns best by doing, by experimenting, by getting his hooves into things and learning as he goes. If you try to get him to learn something from a book, he fails horribly. But if you give him the chance to learn something by doing it, he picks it up quickly. And you’re the same way,” he told her, carefully working around the real reason for it. He had the feeling that if he admitted to her that he knew she couldn’t read, she might lash out, or quit the lessons because she would feel humiliated. “So, that’s how we’re going to do things.”

She gave him a surprised look, with a bit of hope shimmering in her eyes.

“I’m almost out of time, so here’s what I want you to do,” he said, putting the book back in the shelf. “Tonight, I want you to practice the light spell.”

“The light spell? That’s basic magic!” she protested.

“Yes, but I want you to cast it on the far side of a closed door, where you can’t see where you’re putting the spell,” he told her calmly. “You have to learn how to focus the terminus of a spell somewhere you can’t see, and the light spell is the perfect spell to practice that skill. So, go home and go to your closet door, and use your knowledge of your closet, what’s in it and its layout, and try to cast the light spell into it, on the other side of the door. Try to place the light spell in specific places inside the closet, like over a particular shelf, or up against the ceiling in the middle, or over a box sitting on a shelf,” he told her, closing her saddlebag and lifting it off the desk with his magic, offering it to her. “Be as specific as you can where you place the spell, going on your memory of what’s in your closet and where everything is.”

“I’ve…I’ve never done that before. I mean, I’ve learned how to levitate things not in my field of vision because I know they’re there, but they’ve never taught us that.”

“Then apply that levitation trick to the light spell, and you’ll have learned a trick that your school doesn’t teach you,” he said lightly. “I’ll let you figure it out. That’s part of your lesson. Tomorrow, we’ll see how well you did.”

“Alright,” she said, putting her saddlebags over her back. She flinched a bit when the clock Starjumper had on the shelf rang loudly, giving three very loud chimes before falling silent. “What’s that?”

“The clock telling us that time is up,” he replied calmly. “When that clock goes off, Summer Dawn, we are done for the day. Go home and practice with the light spell, and tomorrow when you come to the library for afternoon study, we’ll see how much you’ve learned.”

“Okay,” she replied.

He ushered her out the front door and watched her go down the steps, wondering just what he got himself into. He had no loyalty to this Summer Dawn. She was a society pony, a pony that he’d usually dismiss as utterly ridiculous, maybe even scorn a little bit. And while she hadn’t asked him for help, he just couldn’t leave this alone. Princess Twilight had brought him here and given him tremendous latitude to allow him to study magic and fulfill his full potential as a unicorn, to the point where she intervened with the school on his behalf. And down there, just reaching the ground and walking away, was a pony with far more potential than him that wasn’t ever going to see it realized if he did not help.

That was clear enough. Her parents clearly didn’t understand her problem, probably because he suspected that she kept it a secret from them…after all, having a filly that couldn’t read wasn’t going to make her parents look all that good in their high society circles. Her school didn’t care about her problem, because she’d gone all the way to her final year and they’d done nothing to help her. But he did, and when he looked at her, he could only see the hurt in his brother’s eyes when the ponies in his school laughed at him because he couldn’t read a passage from a book.

He wasn’t going to let that happen to another pony.

He’d just have to be careful. As long as he got her out of the apartment when the warning bell rang every day and prevented her from getting chatty, he would be able to keep his secrets. She was here on business, and that business was learning magic. And he would keep it strictly business.

Starjumper was almost maddening.

The stallion was a riot of conflicting signals, and he confused the ever-loving life out of Summer Dawn. But there was one undeniable fact, and that was in the last two weeks of tutoring under him, her grades had improved vastly…and that wasn’t even counting the fact that he was teaching her how to cast the teleport spell.

He tutored her every school day after her classes, and those two weeks had established a pattern. The first hour of the tutoring, he went over her schoolwork with her, which was why her grades had improved significantly in just two weeks. Simply put, Starjumper was the best teacher she’d ever had, because he explained things to her. He didn’t tell her to go read a book. He didn’t berate her because she was supposed to already know that. When she asked a question, he didn’t just answer it, he explained it, he made her not just understand his answer, but understand the question in ways she hadn’t considered. And what was best, he never, ever told her to just go read a book about it.

It was almost amazing how much she’d learned in just two weeks.

The second half of the tutoring—which was usually way longer than an hour—was on learning how to teleport…sort of. He’d told her that she had to work up to being able to cast the spell by increasing her skill with magic in other ways, which meant that he gave her all these strange challenges and tasks that expanded her understanding of magic on a fundamental level and taught her to think about magic in ways she’d never even considered. Every lesson was a revelation, an eye-widening I get it! moment that expanded her horizons.

In just the last two weeks, she’d learned how to cast spells without using her eyes, she’d learned how to triple cast, maintaining two spells while casting a third, she’d learned how to use mathematics to increase the power, range, and efficiency of her spells, and had learned how to use spells she already knew in ways she’d never even considered before.

It was…it was almost intoxicating, both in what she was learning and how it made her feel. She’d never, ever, looked forward to going to school until she met Starjumper. Even though she was still doing very poorly on the quizzes and tests, when lab time came, she was astounding Professor Frostmane with her ability to use magic. She was terrible at writing down an exhaustive description of some magical process, but she sure as Celestia’s mane could get up there and cast the spell and do it.

Just like Starjumper said, Summer Dawn learned best by doing, and she was doing a whole lot under his tutelage.

That was the good part of Starjumper. The bad part was that he was secretive, he was sometimes aloof, and he wasn’t always all that friendly. He seemed to go through moods, she’d learned, and how he greeted her when she arrived in the library to fetch him would set the tone for how the day would go. He was never mean, he was never overbearing or snide or insulting when he corrected her mistakes, but he could be…well, he could be abrupt. He also wasn’t one that engaged in smalltalk or conversation, and that was almost an anathema to her. He seemed perfectly content to sit there in complete silence, a silence that Summer Dawn had always felt was awkward when two ponies were in the same room, and sometimes showed annoyance when she broke that silence. She’d been trained since a filly in the art of social smalltalk, of engaging other ponies in friendly conversation to make them feel comfortable, but that had the exact opposite effect on him. Any time she tried to get him to talk, he would ice up, even stare her down to put her back on her lessons.

And that was so confusing. He had never once been mean to her, and she knew that he liked her. But he kept his distance from her. He was doing a job for her, and even if she didn’t think of him as an employee or a servant, he would not cross some line he’d set in his mind concerning the deal he made with her.

And then there was that clock. No matter what they were doing, no matter how involved or engaged they were in a lesson, when that clock chimed, it was over. Lesson done, Summer Dawn hustled out of his apartment within three minutes of it going off. It had taken Summer Dawn nearly a week to figure out that it didn’t go off at the same time every day, and it wasn’t based on her being there for two hours. Over the last few days, she’d been there for almost four hours every afternoon. Just yesterday morning, she’d realized that the clock did have a pattern, that it went off exactly half an hour before sunset. Since the days were getting shorter and shorter as they counted down to the first day of winter, Princess Twilight lowering the sun by a set schedule that made the days counting up to Hearth’s Warming Eve shorter, the clock changed the time of day it went off so that it always chimed at exactly thirty minutes before sunset. Yesterday, she had accurately predicted exactly when it would go off by reading the almanac section in the daily newspaper, that gave the times of sunrise and sunset..

Starjumper himself was almost always the topic of conversation in school. During the week of his suspension, students saw him sitting at the same table in the library, usually with dozens of books scattered across its surface, studying. When he returned to class, Professor Frostmane completely ignored him, never asked him questions, allowed him to continue self-studying from the many books he kept scattered on the desk and went about her lessons with the others. And outside of school, he was never seen outside of predictable patterns. In the mornings on school days, exactly ten minutes before the library opened, he arrived at Donut Joe’s diner, bought an apple scone and a cup of coffee, and brought them with him when he headed back to campus. For lunch, he would eat in the school cafeteria, and always had the same thing. One hay sandwich with rose petals and pepper, one side salad with grated cheese topping, one glass of apple juice. He would be in the cafeteria only as long as it took him to eat, and then return to the library. On Saturday mornings at exactly nine o’clock, he would go to the general store and buy food and supplies, buying enough to last the entire week, then he would go to the quill and parchment shop across the street from the campus and restock his studying supplies. At exactly two o’clock on Saturdays, he would come out to go to the Tasty Treat, where he would eat in the restaurant and then return home. Every Sunday afternoon at exactly noon, he would take a walk down to the overlook park, the park built on the lip of the city that was built out away from the mountainside, which gave some breathtaking views of the valley below. There, he would lay down on a blanket he brought with him and read, and he would remain for exactly three hours. At three o’clock, he returned to his apartment. And on Tuesdays, he would indulge in the other free meal that Summer Dawn had set up for him at the Tasty Treat, but he didn’t stay and eat in the restaurant like he did on Saturdays. After their lesson that day was done, he would arrive at the restaurant exactly twenty minutes before sunset, pick up the order that was waiting for him, and then return to his apartment. If the food wasn’t ready in time, he didn’t wait for it. He would go back home without it, and ask them to deliver it to the apartment and place it on the porch outside the door for him to come and get when he had the time.

After asking around a little, she’d learned that Starjumper had not once ever been seen in Canterlot outside of those times.

And that was bizarre. It was almost like he lived his entire life by a rigorous schedule, and there was no budget in it for anything, anything fun. He never went to parties. He never deviated from that routine, and he never, ever talked to any pony unless they talked to him first. And even then he was both polite and brief, saying the bare minimum and then excusing himself the moment doing so would not be seen as rude.

He was a mystery, and that was causing some problems for Summer Dawn, because she adored solving mysteries. For the last few days, she’d been trying to figure those patterns out, understand why he did what he did, what meaning it had or what purpose it served. And so far, most of him had her stumped.

But there was one thing she'd figured out. Starjumper was deceiving her about teleportation. He could teleport. He had never outright denied it, never actually lied to her, she realized after she figured it out, he said things very carefully in a way that deflected the issue without being untruthful. He'd made just one little mistake about the subject that allowed her to figure it out, and that was the book. She still had the book, and after two weeks of being around him, she realized that he wrote that book. The hornwriting in the book matched the hornwriting she'd seen on the scrolls and books on which she'd seen him writing. She may not be able to read it, but she could see the shape and flow of the writing on the pages, and it perfectly matched Starjumper's flowing yet exacting writing style.

Starjumper wrote that book. And that meant that Starjumper had to know so much about teleportation that he could write a book about it, write down the spell.

It just matched his personality, she'd learned over the last two weeks. He was exceptionally secretive, and for some reason, he kept exactly what he could do, how much he knew about magic, secret. Not even the teachers in school knew just how much he knew, and it gave her some kind of dark thrill to be in on that secret, a secret so secret that she might be the only pony in Canterlot that knew the truth.

Despite that frustration, so far she could admit that she’d never been happier about school. She was almost bouncing along as she walked down the Promenade with Crystal Bell and Berry Cream, about halfway to the campus. They were talking about the party they’d attended the night before at the Three Rings, a members-only club for society ponies that was nearly as old as Canterlot.

“Sooooo, how are those private sessions with Starjumper in his apartment going, Summer?” Crystal Bell asked coquettishly.

“Just fine, thank you very much,” she replied frostily, which made Berry Cream giggle. “Yesterday I learned how to triple cast! And wanna see what else I learned?”

“What?”

Crystal Bell almost screamed when she was suddenly hoisted up into the air, surrounded in an aura of pink magic. “Want me to turn you over and shake you until you beg for mercy?” she threatened.

Both Crystal Bell and Berry Cream laughed brightly. “You do that, and I’ll throw up on you,” she threatened. “Now put me down. Gently,” she amended quickly.

Summer Dawn flashed a quick grin up at her, then did so. “Wow, I didn’t know you could do that, Summer,” Berry Cream said.

“Starjumper taught me,” she replied. “So yes, I am learning something. I learn something new almost every day that he teaches me. Seriously, girls, he’s the best teacher I’ve ever had, even better than our professors. And the tutoring sessions aren’t boring. He doesn’t make me sit and read dusty old books. From the moment I get there to the moment I leave, I’m using magic, not reading about magic.”

“Well now, maybe I should talk to him. I’m really having problems with that freezing spell,” Berry Cream speculated.

“He already taught me how to do that one,” Summer Dawn proclaimed. “I swear, two weeks now Professor Frostmane has been talking about that spell and I didn’t understand a word she said. But Starjumper teaches me how to cast it in three days. He even taught me some variations of it.”

“Like what?”

“Like this,” she said, her horn flaring with pink magic. The air around them suddenly turned icy, almost painfully cold, and frost crystals started forming around them. “It works on air too,” she announced. “It just takes tweaking the spell a little bit.”

“Wow! Now stop it,” Berry Cream ordered, her teeth chattering.

“Weakling,” Summer Dawn teased, ending the spell. The air didn’t just instantly go back to normal, but as they moved, they walked out of the effect.

“You are so gonna get tons of bonus points on the practical when we test on this spell!” Berry Cream declared.

“Yeah, it should just about make up for me bombing the written part,” Summer Dawn laughed wryly.

“Uh oh,” Crystal Bell said, glancing to the side. Summer Dawn and Berry Cream followed her gaze, and they saw Nova coming up Gem Street, towards the Promenade. “That’s right, his suspension is over now. I wonder how he’s going to act in class with Starjumper there.”

“He’d better be careful,” Berry Cream mused. “If he gets in trouble one more time, he’ll get expelled.”

“I heard that North Star grounded him for a month,” Summer Dawn said in a hushed tone.

“He must have, I haven’t seen him once since he got suspended,” Crystal Bell agreed. “Not even down at the Laughing Manticore, and that’s his favorite place to hang out.”

“At least he only has this one day before the holiday and weekend,” Summer Dawn mused. They were only having class for two days this week. Tomorrow was the Harvest Festival, an annual holiday in Canterlot for which school closed. And it was tradition for the school to remain closed the rest of the week to give the students their first break since school started, a five day weekend.

“Speaking of the holiday, you wanna go do something after the holiday, Summer?” Crystal Bell asked. “I was thinking that maybe we could go down to Ponyville and see the elements of harmony museum on Thursday or Friday. Maybe tour Princess Twilight’s castle there, they’re doing public tours while she’s here in Canterlot standing in for Princess Celestia. I think that might be pretty cool.”

“There’s gonna be a Wonderbolts performance there on Friday, the last performance of the season close to Canterlot before they go out east for the final leg of their autumn tour,” Berry Cream added. “We could make an overnight trip of it, see if Skyblaze crashes and burns,” she added with a giggle.

Summer Dawn laughed. “I still cannot believe that Skyblaze got into the Wonderbolts!” she said. “I remember all those times he used to crash into things around town!”

“Youngest Wonderbolt since Rainbow Dash,” Crystal Bell said with a little trill in her voice. She’d always had something of a crush on the pegasus, who had quite a reputation in Canterlot from back when he was a young stallion for being a wild flyer, and maybe more than a little bit crazy. But it must have worked for him, since he’d managed to get into the Wonderbolts. Even now, nearly five years since those days, many Canterlot ponies still talked about his more spectacular crashes, as well as that day he made it snow in the middle of summer…and boy did he ever get in trouble for that.

“That does sound kinda fun,” Summer Dawn said. “What do you say, girls? Wanna make an overnight of it? We can go down on Thursday morning, stay overnight, then catch the Friday afternoon train and have the weekend here.”

“If I can get my parents to let me stay overnight, sure,” Berry Cream nodded.

The morning session of class wasn’t too insufferable, even though she felt lost while Frostmane was going over the freezing spell, mainly because there was no sense of dread or panic in her. She knew the spell, she could cast both of its variants thanks to Starjumper, and she knew that while she’d do very bad on the written test about the spell, she’d earn back enough points to pass when they did the practicals, which would be held today rather than Friday due to the short school week.

But, the morning session was a bit strained for another reason…Nova. He was back in class, sitting in the very front of the class, and he kept glancing at both her and Starjumper the entire morning.

After lunch came their first test on the freezing spell, which Starjumper didn't have to take, so he went to the library while the rest of the class stayed in the classroom. She struggled through the written test, barely got halfway through it before Frostmane collected up their papers, and then one by one they had to go up in front of the class and cast the spell to prove they could apply the theories they’d learned. Today was their first practical exam with the freezing spell, where they would be graded on using it for the first time. Five students went before she did, and all of them managed to cast the spell, with varying degrees of success and various results. Two students barely managed to freeze the surface of the water. One student shattered the glass bowl holding the water instead of freezing it, and two students managed to freeze portions of the water, forming ice cubes within it. And given they’d only studied the spell for two weeks, all of those results weren’t all that bad, but none of them achieved the objective of the practical, to freeze the entire bowl of water solid without shattering the glass bowl holding the water.

When it was her turn, she nearly cantered up to the front of the class, focused her gaze on the large glass bowl of water on the table, and passed the day’s exam in about three seconds. She froze the entire bowl of water effortlessly, and even did it in a way that didn’t break the bowl, which was also part of the test. Not doing the spell right would expand the ice inside the glass bowl and shatter it, but Starjumper had taught her how to freeze the water without damaging its container.

“Very good, Miss Summer Dawn,” Frostmane said with an approving nod. “That is a full fifty points for successfully freezing the entire volume of water without breaking the bowl. Do you wish to try for bonus points?”

“Yes I do,” she replied, her horn flaring with pink energy once again. Frostmane’s eyes widened in quite a satisfactory manner when she lowered the temperature in the entire room, making it so cold that everypony’s breath was misting in the frigid air. “I learned how to apply the spell to air as well as water,” she declared, her horn’s aura winking out, but the cold remained behind. “And I also learned this.”

Her horn flared once more, this time much brighter, with a much larger aura, which betrayed the sudden surge of magic she unleashed from within her core. A small sphere of pale blue energy formed at the tip of her horn, and then she lowered her head and unleashed it just the way Starjumper had taught her. A beam of blue magic lashed across the room and struck the bowl, and frost and ice almost instantly formed where the beam had struck, the ice crunching and crackling as it formed, encasing the bowl and the top of the table around it in a layer of frost and ice. “You can build up the spell’s matrix and let it go all at once, and it forms a beam of utter cold.”

Frostmane looked impressed, and that made Summer Dawn feel nearly as good as when Starjumper taught her those two variants of the spell. “Outstanding, Miss Summer Dawn. And did you learn the reversal spell to melt the ice?”

“Yes ma’am, both for air and water,” she answered, almost smugly. Her horn flared once again, and the temperature in the room returned to normal. Then, almost as a flourish, she melted the ice both in the glass bowl and around it.

Frostmane gave a respectful nod and picked up a quill with her silver magic, then made several marks on her clipboard. “That is forty bonus points, Miss Summer Dawn, for learning both variants of the spell on your own, and both reversal spells. Ten points per spell you learned on your own. Added to your fifty points for a successful use of the test spell, that gives you a final score on your practical of ninety. I would say, Miss Summer Dawn, that you have passed your exam. Your score on your written test is irrelevant,” she said with a very slight smile. “And since you displayed complete mastery of the spell, you have completed this block of instruction. Until we start working on the transfiguration spell, Miss Summer Dawn, you will be doing self study in the library. Check in with me on Monday morning before you go to the library.”

She very nearly squealed in delight, and tried not to look too giddy as she returned to her desk. It took her two weeks to learn those spells, but it had paid off!

And if Starjumper hadn’t been tutoring her, she was certain that she wouldn’t have even learned the freezing spell. Those gems she promised to pay him were more and more looking like the wisest investment she’d ever made!

“Miss Crystal Bell,” Frostmane called.

It was such a relief! For the first time in over a year, she didn’t have to spend an entire evening worrying and panicking over whether or not she passed an exam! She’d scored enough points on her practical to pass, and given she didn’t even get halfway through the written test, that was a very, very good thing!

And maybe she was a being a bit smugly arrogant, but no other unicorn in class had learned either of the variants of the spell, but about half of them had learned the reversal spell.

So, when class let out for the day, Summer Dawn was almost prancing down the hall, to the point where Crystal Bell and Berry Cream had to chase her down. “Well, somepony’s in a good mood,” Crystal Bell noted lightly.

Summer Dawn laughed. “You realize that’s the first time since the end of our sophomore year I’ve left a class knowing I passed an exam before Friday morning?” she replied. “You’re darn right I’m in a good mood!”

“Well, it’s a good thing there’s a party tonight,” Berry Cream said. “And it should be a good one. Silver Ring always throws great parties.”

“I’m gonna be a little late,” Summer Dawn said. “I won’t finish tutoring until just before sunset.”

“I’d say that hiring Starjumper was just what you needed, Summer,” Crystal Bell told her. “Those other tutors your parents hired didn’t do a very good job.”

“It’s uncanny, girls. Professor Frostmane can talk about something for a week and I just don’t understand a word she says, but Starjumper explains it to me in an hour, and it’s like it’s the simplest thing in the world,” she told them. "I've already learned six new spells in just two weeks. He taught me a spell that fixes a broken object, a spell that makes flammable material catch fire, and the four variants of the freezing spell I used for bonus points."

“And when is he going to teach you that shield spell?”

“He said we have to work our way up to it,” she replied. “And that teaching me those spells I could never get right are steps down the path.”

Since he'd tested out of the freezing spell and didn't have to take the test, Summer Dawn met Starjumper in the library. He was up on the second floor in the main chamber, and he always sat at the same table, another indication of his tendency to be a creature of habit, almost like sitting at another table would disrupt the rigid schedule by which he lived. There were about twenty books spread across the table, and three of them were open and propped up in front of him as he wrote on a scroll in front of them. “Hey, Star,” she called quietly. “What are you studying?”

“Stoneshaping magic,” he answered without looking at her. “And I have two reports and three essays to write by Monday.”

“Ouch,” she winced. “Part of that remedial schoolwork you talked about?" Starjumper had a ton of extra schoolwork to do, which was why he was always busy. He said it was remedial, that he had to prove to them he knew all the stuff they taught in prior years, since the final he had to take would cover that material. They didn't want him to walk into that test unprepared, so the poor stallion was more or less doing an entire five years of schoolwork in one.

"Sort of."

"Sounds like today will be short.”

“A little,” he nodded. “How did it go?”

“I passed just on the points on the practical, and since I did what we have to do to pass the final test on the spell, it means I’ve tested out. I don’t have to work on the spell anymore, so while the rest of the class keeps working on it, I get self-study time in the library just like you,” she proclaimed proudly. “So, I’ll be in here with you on Monday." Frostmane had made him stay in the classroom the last week, but with the first test on the spell completed, she was going to allow him to stay in the library all day while the remaining students worked on the freezing spell. That was more or less standard procedure in school, the students that tested out got to self study in the library until the next block of instruction started. "Thank you, Star. I won’t be freaking out the entire holiday and weekend wondering if I passed. I already know I passed.”

“Good job,” he said without looking at her. “And did you freeze Frostmane’s head?”

She laughed, then covered her muzzle with her hoof when several students there glared in her direction. “I thought about it, but I chickened out. I used the ice beam spell on the bowl instead.”

“Coward,” he teased, which made her giggle.

She waited while he finished what he was doing, about twenty minutes, then he collected up all the books on the table and they left, bringing them all with him by having them float beside and behind them. The library was just down the campus walkway from his apartment, so it only took a brief moment for them to reach his small tower from the library doors. He explained the next step they were taking as they walked, explaining a new spellcasting technique he called staging, which he said she needed to learn in order to use shield spells. “In essence, when you stage a spell, Summer, you’re casting it without casting it,” he told her as they came down the steps of the library. “You form the spell matrix without investing any energy into it, like building the frame of a house, and then you go back in and fill it in once you’re sure the frame is sound and stable. Staging it lets you see what you’re doing before you put any energy into the spell, that way the spell doesn’t misfire and burn your mane off or something. When you’re first learning them, shield spells have to be staged, you have to form its matrix to make sure you have the dimensions and matrix right, then you fill in the frame, which is the actual casting of the spell. It’s a two step process. Once you gain mastery of the spell, you don’t have to stage it anymore. And that holds true for most spells.”

“So, staging is something of a teaching tool,” Summer Dawn mused. “Something you learn so you can learn, that you don’t really use much once you learn what you want to learn.”

He nodded. “But it’s still an invaluable skill to learn, because it does allow you to learn highly advanced magic safely,” he said.

“Magic training wheels,” she giggled.

“Pretty much,” he agreed evenly. “How much longer are you supposed to work on the freezing spell?”

“Another month,” she replied. “So that’s a whole month of self study time for me, which will let me get a head start on the transfiguration spell. I hope you don’t get sick of seeing me,” she grinned.

“We’ll both have our noses buried too deeply in a book to look up,” he replied.

They reached his apartment, and the door opened by his magic before they reached it. They walked into the large common room, which was spartan and immaculately clean, and he took off his saddlebags and hung them on a peg, then set the large stack of books he was carrying on the floor beside his study desk. “So, did you finish learning that gemfinding spell?” she asked.

“A week ago,” he replied in his usual terse manner. “I’m working on the stoneshaping spell now.”

“Cool. I don’t think we have much time, so let’s get started.”

He gave her an approving nod, and beckoned her over to sit on the large pillow set out in the middle of the floor. That was her “desk” for when he was teaching her, as he explained things, or used magic to create illusions that visibly demonstrated something. And those illusions never failed to impress the hay out of her. They were so incredibly detailed, it was almost looking like a photograph, and he could even make them move. So it was like watching a movie instead of looking at a magically conjured picture. Professor Starshine last year said that illusions depend on the imagination and memory of the caster, so it told her that Starjumper had to have an incredibly vivid imagination.

After explaining the process behind staging a spell, he demonstrated using magic, creating magical lines in the air in front of them that mimicked the matrix of a spell in the middle of the casting process. “You build the frame of the matrix but you don’t put any power into it,” he explained. “Usually that would make a spell just fizzle out, but since you’re not releasing it, it holds in its matrix. That lets you look at what you’ve cast, make sure that you have everything right, before you charge the matrix and cast the spell normally. Mind, you won’t actually be doing this. You’ll be building a matrix shell of magic and sensing it, not looking at it. That’s why I had you do those exercises when you sense how other unicorns are using magic when they cast spells. It was refining your ability to sense the currents of magic while they flow.”

She looked up at the swirl of magical lines. “So, this is the visible representation of a spell being cast,” she mused. “It looks complicated.”

“It is, more complicated than actually casting the spell,” he agreed. “But my father taught me that this is the most efficient way to learn to use advanced magic, at least for him and me. There are other theories, other approaches, and they work, but I don’t know them. I’d have to learn them first, then teach them to you, and that would really slow things down. We’ll start with this, and if you can’t get the hang of it, we’ll try one of the other techniques, until we find what works best for you.”

“Alright,” she nodded professionally. “And I think I understand what this technique is getting at. It’s like practice-casting a spell, just without actually casting it.”

“More or less, but there is a trick to it that you have to practice, else you constantly try to cast the spell you’re staging,” he nodded.

Despite both of them saying they wouldn’t be there long, they were there for nearly three hours, as Starjumper methodically walked her through the process and then taught her how to do it. And to her credit, and a little bit if glee, she’d managed to pick it up fairly quickly…and boy, was it not easy. There was a definite trick to it, using magic but not letting it go anywhere and do anything, kind of like imagining she was casting it while she went through the motions of casting it.

And right on time, that clock gave its three loud gongs, and that caused Starjumper to immediately stop what he was doing. “That’s it,” he declared, picking up her saddlebags with his magic and floating them over to her. He put them on her back and buckled them for her when she stood up. “Practice that over the weekend, and Monday we’ll start working on that transfiguration spell, just so you have more time to practice what I’m teaching you so you don’t have to worry about it.”

“Okay,” she nodded. She was about to say something, but there was a bit of a loud clatter out on the balcony, and the balcony door opened before either of them could go see what was going on.

And in that door strode a thestral. It was a thestral mare, taller than average, and she was quite pretty! She had a nearly black coat with spots and splotches of pitch black dappled on her sides and shoulders and chest, spots similar to the ones on Starjumper’s shoulders, and her mane was a lustrous midnight blue with a large black streak around her right ear. Like Starjumper, her eyes were yellow with vertically slitted pupils. Her wings were huge, and when she opened them up over her back after coming through the door, they rose up over double as high as a pegasus’ wings would when they had them open. “Ducky!” she called, then she gave a fanged smile when she saw them. “Oh, is this your student?”

“Mother,” he replied evenly. “Yes it is. Summer Dawn, this is Nightsong, my mother. Mother, Summer Dawn.”

“Hello, Misses Nightsong,” Summer Dawn greeted as she walked up to them, and Summer Dawn had to look up to look her in the eyes. She was nearly as tall as Starjumper!

“It’s good to meet you, Summer Dawn,” she said with an infectious smile. “You’re a total cutie.”

“Aww, thanks,” she said, blushing modestly. “Is Star going home for the weekend?”

“I doubt it, I was just bringing him some mail and a few things from home,” she replied, turning enough to show a small satchel hanging off her left shoulder, just in front of her large leathery wing. It also let her see her cutie mark, which was a series of stars arranged in the shape of a musical note. “Canterlot isn’t far enough from Baltimare for me to not drop in on him and cause him trouble,” she winked.

“Mother,” Starjumper warned, almost plaintively. That made Summer Dawn giggle despite herself.

“So, how are your lessons going, ducky?” she asked, looking right at her.

“Uh, pretty good,” she answered. “He’s a really good teacher, and my grades are already going up.”

“It looks like things are done for today.”

“Yes they are,” she nodded. “I was just getting ready to leave, but I’m glad I had the chance to meet you.”

She gave a smile. “Usually I’d tell you to stay a while and chat, but I’m afraid I’m on a bit of a schedule today, ducky. But I’ll come back another day and we’ll have a nice long chat.”

“I think I’d like that,” she nodded. “And I’d better go, I have to get ready for a party I’m attending tonight. I’ll see you on Monday, Star.”

He nodded without answering.

She let herself out, and as she was getting ready to go down the stairs, he heard Nightsong’s voice through the door. “I see the clock rang,” she heard her say, and that made Summer Dawn pause at the top of the steps. Eavesdropping wasn’t very polite, but she was just too curious to be gracious.

“I have about a half hour. Want to wait until after dark and go out for a fly?”

“I wasn’t kidding about being on a schedule, son,” she heard her say. “I wish I could stay, but I can’t. I need to get back to Baltimare. I came to warn you."

"What about?"

"The Night King lost the throne," she said. Who was the Night King?

"That's not good," she heard him say soberly. "Who took it from him?"

"His daughter. Your uncle Shadowstep's letter says that quite a few thestrals think he lost on purpose so she could succeed him."

Uncle...was the Night King a thestral? The ruler of that place where the thestrals lived? What did he call it...the Nightlands? Yes, the Nightlands.

"That's really not good."

"I know. You know what this means."

"She won't honor the treaty," she heard Starjumper say, his voice sounding angry. "She was against it from the start."

"We'll see, but I'm not sure she has the fangs to challenge Celestia."

"But Celestia's not here. She might challenge Princess Twilight. She's an unknown quantity."

"I think the pasting Princess Twilight's put on a long line of villains that have threatened Equestria may make Whisperwing think twice," Nightsong said lightly. "Shadowstep said that she's sending her daughter here to Canterlot to renegotiate the treaty. In other words, threaten to nullify it if the ponies don't give her what she wants."

"Me," she heard Starjumper breathe, barely audible.

"That's a possibility. What it means for you, son, is you'd better be very careful when Moonblade is here. She may ignore the treaty and diplomatic convention and take a shot at you if she sees you, and she'll have a whole squad of the Night Blades backing her up. She definitely took the long fangs."

Summer Dawn had no idea what that meant....some thestral saying?

"I'm usually careful anyway, but I'll make sure to stay inside while she's here," he answered. "When is she supposed to arrive?"

"Shadowstep doesn't know. Between how long it takes to get here and how long ago the letter was sent, it could be tomorrow, it could be a moon from now. I suggest you write to Princess Twilight and see if she's heard anything about it. And you should warn her."

She jerked a bit when she heard a noise, then lifted herself off the porch and floated out and away from his tower rather than walk down, so her hoofsteps didn’t alert Starjumper and his mother that she had been just on the other side of the door. Starjumper really was keeping some kind of big secret. From what she just overheard, Starjumper was tangled up with the thestrals over where his mother came from, that they hated him for some reason, and there was some treaty or something that kept them from coming after him. He said that if this new ruler ignored the treaty, they'd attack him, and that a term of renogiating it would be them giving Starjumper over to them.

Why? Starjumper was born in Equestria, he'd never even been where his mother came from, he told her that once in one of those rare instances when he was talkative. Why would they care about him? It wasn't like he was dangerous or anything.

Well, she certainly wasn’t going to cause Starjumper any problems. What she’d learned was something she was never going to mention to anypony, not even him. Especially not him, it would mean that she had violated his privacy, and that would make him super mad.

She thought about it as she floated along a good thirty feet off the ground, floating above the Promenade, using the magic trick that Starjumper had taught her to avoid the hustle and bustle on the street below and give her a chance to think without the distractions of the street pulling her attention every which way. It was really fun to float along like that, and she’d practiced enough to where she could get some impressive speed. Nowhere near as fast as a pegasus could fly, but she was moving at what would be a brisk canter if she were walking. Her mind wasn’t on Starjumper’s secret, though, it was on the upcoming holiday weekend. Two days in Ponyville, it sounded really nice. They would go to the Harmony museum on Thursday, tour Princess Twilight's palace, maybe do some shopping, and stay overnight. On Friday, they’d watch the Wonderbolt performance, then come home and relax the rest of the weekend.

That sounded like lots of fun, and since she’d tested out and had a month of self study when she came back on Monday, she wasn’t going to stress over school at all, all weekend.

And that was just pure heaven.

Secrets

There was little to do but wait...and worry.

Starjumper walked slowly out of the library, with both a stack of books and an enthusiastic young mare following along behind him. Five days since his mother had brought him the warning had done little to settle him down. He didn't look it, and he certainly wasn't going to let Summer Dawn see it, but he was worried.

He knew this day may come. He knew that someday, there may be a reckoning between him and the thestrals, but he didn't think it would be quite like this, taking place not in some isolated forest or lonely glade, but in the most important city in Equestria and where everypony was going to see what came to pass. The night his mother brought the warning, he flew over the city and realized that his secret may be in real jeopardy.

He would have no choice. He would have to protect himself, to fight, and in a fight, there was only one rule: win. And against a highly trained warrior like a thestral noble and an entire squad of the elite guard that answered to the Night Queen, he would have to do whatever it took. There would be no way to be gentle, no way to be constrained. There would be no careful rules about what he could and could not do so the ponies in Canterlot didn't know his capabilities. There would only be the one rule, and the fact that if he didn't follow that rule, he may not only lose, but die.

Dying was not part of his future plans.

He'd already considered the problem, and with Princess Twilight's help, he'd addressed the biggest problems he'd face. The main issue was that at night, as a thestral, it would be him against however many of them came to Canterlot, and he was vulnerable. In the daytime, there was really no way they could corner him, at least not when they didn't know what he could do. They wouldn't be ready for that, and it would give him the advantage. But at night, without access to his unicorn magic, he was just another thestral, with nothing but his wings and his wits, and facing enemies who were much more prepared for that kind of fight than him. His mother had taught him how to protect himself, and he did have a weapon he could bring to bear as a thestral, but he didn't train to fight the way the Night Blades did, the way a thestral noble did. They would be far superior to him in a wing to wing encounter. And in that kind of situation, his primary goal wouldn't be victory, it would be staying alive long enough for the sun to rise, to change back into a unicorn and regain the advantage.

So long as the threat of the thestral delegation hung over him, the night would be his enemy.

Princess Twilight had done him a huge favor and addressed his greatest vulnerability, and that was the apartment. She'd cast a spell over the tower that wouldn't allow a thestral to cross the boundary of the tower's walls, a Warding spell, magic that he couldn't cast himself. That was the kind of serious high order magic that he was here in Canterlot to try to learn, a spell far beyond even anything in the school library, far too dangerous to be in a place where magical novices could find it. Princess Twilight had already sent him a book that taught the spell, and he was going to start on it as soon as he finished with stoneshaping and transfiguration spells. It would be his first major test of his magical skills, a spell so advanced and demanding that he may not have the power to cast it, even if he had the intelligence to learn the spell.

A ward was superior to a shield or force field in this situation because wards were permanent when cast properly, a spell that the Princess only had to cast once and would leave active until the need for it had passed. The main drawback to it was that it would also prevent his mother from crossing the ward line, so she wouldn't be able to come inside the apartment until the Princess removed the spell. But, that was a small price to pay for preventing the thestrals from ambushing him inside his own apartment. It provided him with a safe space, a fortified position from which to abide until it was safe.

The apartment had started as his sanctuary, but in a way, now it would be his prison. He preferred to spend the night hours outside and in the air, but he was grounded until the danger passed, forced to hide in the apartment until the thestrals came and went. That was going to be a rough ride. He'd feel a whole lot of cabin fever being trapped in the apartment, unable to do much more than read, study books on magic when he wouldn't be able to practice the magic he was studying.

It would be boring, and frustrating, but it was better than being dead.

"You've been even quieter than usual, Star," Summer Dawn observed as they came down the steps and turned towards his apartment.

"I'm just preoccupied," he told her. "Did you spend the entire holiday goofing off, or did you practice your staging like I told you?"

"I mastered it, thank you very much," she replied primly. "But I still had a good time. We had a lot of fun in Ponyville. And didn't you say that if I learned staging, you'd start teaching me shield spells today?"

"That's going to depend on if you're ready. But if you are, then we'll start tomorrow. I have a different challenge for you today," he answered, then he turned and narrowed his eyes dangerously as Nova moved towards them, coming down a sidewalk from the large main building on campus. The smaller stallion didn't seem to see them, wasn't looking in their direction, his head turned towards the younger filly that was walking beside him. He stopped abruptly, and Summer Dawn's protest died on her lips when she saw where he was looking.

"The Princess still gonna punish you if you get into it with him again?" she asked curiously.

"She didn't say any different, so I'm going to assume that's a yes," he replied. "Besides, it removes the nearly overpowering impulse to squish him. I'm thestral enough to not leave a fight unfinished."

She gave a bit of a giggle. "Crystal Bell told me over lunch that she's never seen him so quiet in class before. I can't believe it, but he's actually trying to not get expelled. At least for now," she mused, then she laughed. "Maybe that means that things won't be quite so bad when we're back in class for transfiguration."

"For the two weeks before the first opportunity to test out," he corrected mildly. "And I'm gonna make sure you test out on the first exam. You need the time to work on other things."

She gave him a bright smile.

They walked across campus, to his apartment, and he put her to the task of practicing staging while he went upstairs and checked the mailbox. To his relief, the flag was up, and he quickly pulled out the note within and read it. Got the official diplomatic missive today, thestral delegation will arrive in three weeks, on the 19th, and is scheduled to stay until the 23rd. The new Night Queen followed the diplomatic conventions and arranged an official appointment, which is a promising sign. So rest easy for a few weeks, Starjumper, and remember, they'll only be here for five days.

I'll leave the ward up. If you can arrange it with your mother, I can alter the ward to allow her to pass through it the same as I did for you, but she has to be here for me to do it. So talk to her about it the next time you see her. Oh, and you might want to put a warning note up on the balcony door so she doesn't try to cross the ward. That won't be very pleasant for her.

As was usual for the Princess when she wrote him notes, it wasn't signed, and it was rather informal in its structure.

Well, that was a relief. He'd still worry about it a little bit, prepare for their arrival, but it did mean that until the 19th, he'd be able to return to his usual routine. And that was something of a comfort to him. For a pony like him, forced into isolation due to the secrets he had to keep, it was little things like a routine that made life a little less lonely. His routine gave him a sense of purpose, and that sense of purpose kept his mind occupied.

Lonely. He walked up to the edge of the second floor and looked down at where Summer Dawn was practicing her staging, and doing a pretty darn good job of it, he could admit. He couldn't deny that she was starting to grow on him a little bit. She was somepony to talk to, somepony that never pressed him for more than he was willing to say, and her honest enthusaism about learning magic was almost infectious. She had an engaging personality, she was funny and observant, she loved magic, she loved learning new things about magic, and he was starting to share in her elation when she learned something new.

He put a hoof on the side of the wall, then rotated from a horizontal plane to a vertical one as he started down the side of the wall towards the floor. Summer Dawn did give him a bit of a glance, but she was getting used to seeing him do that, since he did it quite a bit inside the apartment. He didn't go out of his way to get to the stairs, he just went right up and down the wall. He didn't hide his ability to walk on walls...sometimes to the detriment of the librarians at school. The one time his favorite table was taken, he didn't feel comfortable sitting at another, so he decided to just sit on the ceiling over his favorite table. And did that ever cause a row in the library, because none of the students were getting any studying done. They were all too busy looking up at him.

"I still can't get over how cool that is," she told him as he reached the floor and negotiated getting his hooves from the wall to the floor.

"There's a unicorn spell that mimicks the effect," he shrugged. "Learn it and you can find out what it's like."

"I bet it makes a thestral's house a lot different from ours."

"Well reasoned," he nodded. "Thestrals houses aren't built like unicorn houses. Thestrals see their living space in three dimensions," he explained when she gave him a quizzical look. "They're built with the understanding that the thestrals are going to be moving along the walls and the ceiling. The walls aren't dominated by right angles, the border between the walls and the ceiling and floor are rounded, to make it easier to move over them. And doors to other rooms aren't always at the bottom of a wall in a thestral house," he told her, pointing at the door to the balcony. "Most bedrooms are built so the largest open areas are on the ceiling, not the floor. Thestrals prefer to sleep inverted, hanging upside down, so they don't have beds."

"That sounds both creepy and cool," she chuckled.

"If it wasn't for gravity pulling loose objects down, their houses would look completely alien to you," he said lightly. "But that need to build shelves and tables and such all with the same orientation limits the creativity of their architecture. But, there is some thestral furniture designed for the walls and ceiling. There are stands in a thestral house, bolted to the walls or ceiling with a flat surface for putting things, almost like a tea table. They also build nooks in the ceiling so tables aren't in the way, almost what you'd think would be a hole in the floor. It's a void space in the ceiling with a shelf, and you store what you want to keep in there by sticking it up inside and on the shelf. But things like chairs and couches, thestrals don't really use them."

"That's pretty cool. Does your mom sleep in a bed, or on the ceiling?"

"She sleeps in the bed with Dad at night, but she prefers to take her naps on the ceiling, mainly so Dad can't bother her," he chuckled.

"So, your house is kinda built with your Mom in mind?"

"They renovated it, given the living space over the shop was built generations ago," he answered. "Mainly what they did was cover over the ceiling beams and add doors at the tops of the walls so Mom didn't have to come down to get into another room. But the big thing was covering the beams. Mom told me that she kept tripping over them when she first moved in."

Summer Dawn laughed. "That's hard to imagine, tripping over something on the ceiling. What, does she fall up or down?"

"Down, but what it mainly does it cause her to lose her grip with her front hooves and dangle off the ceiling by her back hooves. You have to remember that gravity still affects her when she's upside down, so if she loses contact with the ceiling with both forehooves or both back hooves, it makes her pull off the ceiling and she has to exert some force to get her hooves back on the ceiling. When she walks on the wall or ceiling, she always walks in a way so that one front hoof and one back hoof are in contact with a surface at all times. It's something of an ingrained habit, and you can see it in how she walks all the time."

"She won't pull free and fall?"

He shook his head. "We don't come free unless we want to, and it even works when we're not paying attention, or we're asleep. That's why we can sleep on the ceiling. Once we decide to stick to something, we stay that way until we decide to let go."

"What if you walk up a wall with wallpaper. Wouldn't you tear it off with your weight on it?"

He gave her an impressed look. "Very observant question," he complimented. "The answer is yes. That's why thestrals don't use wallpaper. But, there is a bit of a secret hiding in that magic."

"Oooh, what?"

"When a thestral clings to another thestral with the same bloodline, it doesn't put weight on them like that," he answered. "If my mother were to come along and put her hoof on my back and pick me up, it wouldn't just rip my skin off from all my weight being focused on that one spot. But, if some thestral not related to me came along and tried the same thing, then it would most likely tear my skin off, because my skin most likely can't support all my weight like that. The magic protects the thestral being picked up from being hurt so long as the two thestrals are blood related. I think it's a very specific, well, evolution of the clinging magic designed to give thestral parents a safe and easy way to carry their newborn foals, given that if they just put her foal in a sling, the foal may fall out if they go upside-down," he told her. "But it doesn't fade over time. My mother can still pick me up and carry me, because she's a big thestral and a very strong flyer. She's more than capable of carrying my weight when she flies. And I could pick her up and carry her the same way when I'm using my floating magic."

"That's pretty wild. So, you can sleep on the ceiling?"

"Can and do," he replied easily. "Mom's right. The bed's comfortable for sleeping at night, but the ceiling's perfect for a nice nap in the afternoon. The day's heat rises up against the ceiling and makes it warm and toasty. It's a very comfortable way to nap."

She gave him a look, halfway through her practice staging spell, then gave a laugh. "I imagine living your house in Baltimare must be pretty crazy," she said. "You and your mom and your sister walking around on the ceiling, your dad and other siblings stuck on the floor."

"It doubles our living space," he said dryly. "But, my brother can walk on walls too. The only one of us who can't is Dancer, and boy is she ever mad about that," he chuckled. "And I think I will teach you the spider climb spell, so you can get an idea of what it's like. It's not a very difficult spell to learn. I bet you could learn it in a couple of hours. It's very simple magic."

"Hey, you know I never say no to you teaching me a new spell," she grinned. "And it'll be bonus points for my final, so that's win-win."

After about another hour of practice with staging, Starjumper stopped her. "I'd say you're competent, and that's all you need," he proclaimed, which made her beam at him. "It's time for you to take your first real lesson in teleportation."

That got her immediate and undivided attention. "Ooh, before we even do shield spells?"

"This is something you should learn now, because it will help you with your shield spells too," he answered. "And you can thank my dad for you doing this now. Dad didn't learn this until after he learned the spell, and it caused him all kinds of problems. So, we're going to avoid that and get you started on this technique now."

"And what is this technique?"

"Simple. Paying attention," he answered.

"Huh?"

He lifted his saddlebag off the peg by the door, buckled it on, then floated his clock over and placed it inside. "Follow me."

Her expression betrayed her curiosity as she fell in behind him as he came out the door, then walked beside him as they came down the steps and turned towards the Promenade. She was quiet as they walked together, glancing at him from time to time, clearly unsure what he was up to. He'd never taken her outside for a lesson before. They reached the wide avenue, and he turned her towards her house. "A shield spell is unlike any other spell in one important way," he began, not looking at her, walking and looking straight ahead. "And that's that it can fail if you try to create it with a foreign object crossing the spell's matrix as it forms, unless you specifically take that object's presence into account and design the shield to go around it. But to do that, you have to know exactly where that object is and how it's going to intersect your shield, so you can tailor the shield's dimensions accurately. in other words, if you try to create the spell with something unexpected crossing the shield's border, the spell fizzles. Given that the reason you're creating a shield is to protect yourself, it's absolutely imperative that you don't let that happen. And that's why you're going to learn how to pay attention."

"I...think I get it?"

"Look there," he said, turning his head towards the Corner Cafè, one of the older coffee shops in the city. Summer Dawn said she went there a lot, since it was a popular place to gather after school. "Now look away." She looked up at him in confusion. "What did you see?"

"It's the Corner Cafè," she replied uncertainly. "I go there a lot with my friends. They have great coffee."

"Well then, I guess that means that you know it. Describe it."

"Huh?"

"Describe it. What did you see?"

"Well, it's...the cafè," she floundered. "I don't get it."

He glanced down at her, then went back to looking ahead. "The building is built of white granite with marble cladding. There are six windows on the side facing the Promenade. Each one has an arched top with angled panes of glass in a black metal frame. Red bunting is stretched across the tops, with tasseled ties. The curtains are yellow velvet, tied back with gold tasseled cords. There are eight tables outside the building, behind a wrought iron fence that is four feet high. The fence connects to the side of the building on the left, but wraps around on the right and continues down Gem Street. There is a gate on the corner where the Promenade crosses Gem Street. The gate has a simple lever latch with no locking ring. There are scratches on the bars closest to the open side of the gate, hinting that the gate is chained shut at night. The tables are made of marble, with upholstered metal chairs painted to resemble wood. The upholstery on the chairs is yellow brushed velvet that shows no signs of being stained by rain, suggesting that the velvet is protected by magic spell to resist the elements. The rivets attaching the cushions to the chairs are brass pinwheel types. Each table has a closeable umbrella over it that extends one foot past the outside edges of the table under it. The umbrellas are pale yellow and white alternating stripes with fringe. The third umbrella from the right has a very small tear in a yellow section of its striping. Each table has four yellow placemats, and on them are rolled sets of silverware in yellow linen napkins. There are six ponies sitting at the eight tables. Two at the table on the left, two at the third table from the left, and one each at the tables on the right and second to right. One of them is Strider, from class, sitting at the table on the right. He is not wearing clothes, but has a white writing quill tucked over his right ear. He is reading a book sitting on the table. I think I've made my point, so I won't describe what the other five ponies were wearing, what they're doing, or what you can see through the windows," he said dryly.

She gave him an astounded look, then snapped her head back towards the restaurant.

"That is what you need to learn," he told her, looking down at her. "How to pay attention. How to know what you see, and remember what you know. This skill is critical for using shield spells, Summer Dawn, so you can accurately place the shield in the available space without it intersecting a solid object. To do that, you have to know exactly what's around you, where everything is, how much space you have, and if anything might be moving that might cross the border of your shield as you build it, which will make it fizzle."

She took a deep breath, then looked up at him. "I'm a little--well, I don't think I can do what you just did," she told him.

"Of course you can, after you practice a while. You think I could do that without practicing for years?" he asked simply. "It's a skill, Summer, it's something you learn to do. And like any skill, you get better with practice."

"Well, then I guess you need to teach me the trick of it."

"There is no trick that I can teach you," he replied. "Learning how to pay attention is all you, Summer. It's something you have to learn how to do on your own, learning the trick to remembering that works best for you, because you know you better than anypony else. It just takes a strong mind and determination, and you have both. Having discipline helps, and I'm still working on teaching you that," he added dryly.

"Oh please," she said primly, which made him chuckle.

"Well, you're still young," he observed.

"I'm three months older than you!" she retorted.

"Whatever."

She gave him a hot look, then burst out laughing when she saw his very subtle expression. "Alright then, Mister Younger But Wiser, let's try again."

In all, Starjumper was both surprised and pleased at her progress just over the afternoon. By making her understand just how much she didn't see when she was looking at something, it made her pay much more attention, and that allowed her to recall much more than he expected. He knew she had a vivid imagination and a very good memory, and she proved it to him by being able to envision what she remembered seeing and then report back to him everything in her mind's eye.

That was actually how he did it. She'd stumbled across his own mnemonic device by instinct.

When his clock blared three gongs, he immediately stopped and turned around. They were about halfway between the school and her house, and she turned with him and kept pace with him. "Not bad," he told her after she described the storefront of a boutique to him. "Now, the key is to practice, Summer. Every time you walk into a room, pay attention. See what's in the room, learn the texture of it. Remember it. Always place yourself within that memory so you know where you are in relation to where everything is, especially the things not in your field of vision."

"And this is the first step to teleportation?"

He looked down at her. "In a way," he replied. "Him not being aware of his surroundings was what caused my Dad so much trouble when he learned the spell. He kept hurting himself because he kept trying to reappear inside other objects."

"Ow!" she breathed. "Did anything get stuck in him?"

Starjumper chuckled. "The magic won't allow it. If you try to reappear inside another object, the magic displaces you to the closest available open space that you'll fit within," he explained in a calm voice.

"How would that hurt him?"

"When the magic moves you in ways you don't dictate, or against your will, it creates...resistance," he answered. "That resistance burns you when you reappear. The more the resistance, the more it burns. And that's on top of whatever injury you may suffer when you reappear, if you, say, reappear twenty feet in the air, or reappear on the railroad tracks in front of a moving train. Falling to the ground is no doubt going to break your legs, at least if you don't stop yourself first. And appearing in front of a train will most likely kill you if you don't react fast enough," he said bluntly.

She gave him a surprised look.

"This spell is not for the meek, Summer Dawn," he told her directly. "This is real magic. This is for real magicians, and to be a real magician, you must accept the risk that comes with tapping into forces that can reshape reality itself. The first rule of teleportation, Summer Dawn, is a very simple one. Mistakes hurt. If you try to reappear inside another object, you get burned. If you don't put enough energy into the spell and come up short of your landing point, you get burned. If you don't correctly define the three aspects of teleportation you control, you get burned. When you learn this spell, Summer Dawn, it will hurt every time you make a mistake. You will burn yourself trying, and do it again, and again, and again, and again. It takes real determination to keep trying in the face of what you know is waiting for you if you make a mistake, and you will make a mistake. What you should ask yourself tonight, Summer Dawn, is if you're willing to commit yourself to this. Are you willing to risk hurting yourself over and over and over again to gain mastery over magic, Summer Dawn?" he asked, looking down at her with an intense stare.

"I don't have to think about that overnight. I want to learn," she declared confidently. "These last two weeks, Star, I've never felt--it's like this is what I've wanted to do all my life," she told him. "I've always loved magic, and now I'm learning more than I've ever learned before. I see things I never noticed. I can sense the way magic flows around me, like it's flowing through my soul. I've never felt like this. I've never felt more right about what I'm doing. I want to learn," she told him. "I want to learn everything you can teach me, Starjumper. I want to know everything you know. I want to be able to do what you do. So yes, I will commit. I will keep trying no matter how many times I burn off my mane, because I know that eventually I won't burn it off anymore."

"You'll do far more than I ever will, Summer Dawn," he told her calmly, but with dignity. "I told you, you're a much stronger magician than I am. Than I will ever be."

"But you know magic," she told him. "You know more than the professors think. You know more than you tell anypony. I don't know why you don't tell ponies what you know, why you hide how great you are at magic, and that's not my business. But these last two weeks, Star, I've seen it. The way you use magic, the way it responds to you, how effortless you make everything you do look...I don't think I could ever have that kind of grace with my spells. I may be stronger than you, at least so you say, but I don't think I'll ever have the skill to use magic like you do."

He looked down at her, a bit honestly surprised. But...he should not have been. Summer Dawn was very smart, and what was more, she was very perceptive. She had a very quick and agile mind, and she saw things that many other ponies missed. He'd noticed that over the last two weeks. "You'll learn everything I know in a few months," he told her dismissively. "You seem to think that I'm something that I'm not, Summer Dawn. I'm just a self-taught dabbler from a family of shopkeepers."

She gave him a long, direct look, that actually made him feel a little bit sheepish.

They reached the school without any further discussion, and she followed him up the steps. He turned and faced her when they reached the apartment door. "I know, three bells," she said. "I'm not going to follow you in. But I think I need to admit something, because I don't think you can teach me the way you want to if you think you have to hide it from me."

He looked down at her, his expression neutral.

"You can teleport," she declared. "And I get the feeling that if you try to hide it, you can't teach me how to do it as easily as you taught your Dad."

He gave her a long, penetrating look, trying to conceal his surprise...and a little bit of delight. She'd figured that out? She was much more perceptive than even he suspected!

"You don't have to say if you can or not," she told him. "That's your secret, and that means it's my secret too. What I'm saying, I guess, is that you don't have to pretend if it means you can't teach me the way you want to, always trying to hide exactly how you know what you know when you supposedly can't cast the spell yourself."

"I told you, I never learned from the book," he told her firmly, looking down at her.

"You wrote that book, Starjumper," she declared simply. "It's written in your hornwriting. Of course you didn't learn anything from it, because you already know everything in it."

"Yes. I wrote that book, when I copied everything from the original book into the new one using my own hornwriting," he challenged. "That doesn't mean I wrote the original."

She just gave him an amused look. "I told you, you don't have to admit it. Or not admit it," she said with a slight smile. "But I thought it was only fair that you know that I know, and that what we know isn't for anyone else to know. Just in the interest of complete honesty," she added lightly. "So, I'll see you tomorrow morning in the library? Are we starting on transfiguration?"

He gave her a long look. "You say that to me, and now you think you're just walking away like nothing happened?" he countered.

"Yes. Yes, I am," she replied, looking up into his eyes unflinchingly, with the slightest of smiles on her beautiful face. "I'll see you tomorrow. Have a good night."

He was quiet as he watched her turn and enshroud herself in an aura of pink magic, then she rose up from his porch and started home, floating away with some impressive speed. She'd gotten into the habit of doing that, both to avoid the hustle and bustle of the street and to practice, and if anything, it certainly got a lot of attention from ponies on the street.

Impressive. Very, very impressive, and what was more impressive was that he didn't feel nervous over what she knew. And that surprised him. She'd unraveled one of his secrets using nothing but her powers of observation, and he wasn't angry. He was surprised, but he wasn't angry. In fact, he was rather impressed, and even a little proud, that she'd figured it out.

And he wasn't freaking out. She'd proven over the last two weeks that she could keep a secret...and she was right. It was going to be extremely hard to teach her how to teleport without admitting he could cast the spell himself, since so much of what he was was tied up in that spell. It defined him as a unicorn, it was his special talent, and to be honest about it, there was probably no magician in Equestria that could use it the way he could.

It was who he was.

Besides, he realized as he watched her flit out of view, no other pony was going to figure it out like she did, because she could see things he didn't allow any other pony to see. He didn't talk about magic with others. He didn't talk to others much at all, not unless he absolutely had to. She was the only pony in Canterlot who was in a position to see past the walls he erected around himself and see the garden of privacy he cultivated behind them. She had not only seen one of his secrets, she had accurately predicted that the fact that he was keeping it a secret was going to adversely impact his lessons.

And that was what made her so impressive. She could see that what he knew was going to come into conflict with what he was teaching her when the time came, that he would have far too detailed and intricate knowlege of the spell to not possibly be able to cast it himself. And that was what made that mare so deceptively formidable.

She was powerful, yes. But she was intelligent, she was observant, and she was creative, and that made her far, far more formidable than her power ever would.

He closed the door and then started walking away from it, then disappeared in a circular burst of golden magic, reappearing upstairs at the writing desk. He had a lot of work to do, and thankfully, he could study magic from a book while a thestral.

But, reality intruded before he could so much as unfurl a scroll on stoneshaping magic when he heard his mother call from the balcony door. "Aiiiyahhh! Star! What in the long shadow did you cast on the door?" she shouted testily. "I'm gonna whip your withers, pup!" She always called him pup when she was mad at him.

"Don't try to come in!" he shouted, then vanished in a circular burst of golden magic and reappeared in front of the door. "Princess Twilight cast a spell over the tower!"

"Is that what it was?" she asked, rubbing her nose with a hoof. The short, fine fur around her nose was singed. "Well, whatever it is, it's certainly working. And it's a bit painful," she complained.

"It's a ward to keep thestrals out of the apartment," he answered. "The Princess said she could come and fix the ward so you can pass through it. Let me write her a note and see if she's available after she lowers the sun. Wait there, and don't come anywhere near the door."

"Oh, I'm not gonna now," she replied evenly. "You owe me a new muzzle, young pup."

"Try knocking next time," he retorted, then he vanished in a circular burst of golden magic before she could deliver her snappy retort.

To his relief, the Princess answered within a minute of him sending the note through the mailbox, promising to come as soon as she lowered the sun. He advanced up to the edge of the second floor and looked down at the door, staying close to the mailbox just in case she sent another note. She had a habit of doing that. "She's coming as soon as she lowers the sun!" he called. The clock gave its second warning, telling him he had fifteen minutes. "Fifteen minutes! You want something to drink or something while we wait?"

"I want you out here fixing the fur around my nose, pup," she retorted, which made him laugh.

He came out and endured the whack from her wing, then attended her little problem. He'd learned a spell that caused fur and mane hair to grow at an accelerated rate, to repair the damage he did to himself when teleporting when he was younger, and he cast the spell on her. The spell would make fur grow back in a matter of seconds, but when it came to manes, it took it much longer. There was a strange issue with how magic affected the mane that made using that magic very tricky, and that fact was half the reason why he kept his own mane so short. After burning it off more times than he could count, and the spell to fix it taking so long to work, he'd gotten used to the buzz cut. The singed fur on her muzzle around her nose quickly filled back out, the blackened ends of it breaking off and falling away, restoring her to former glory. "There, all better," he said soothingly. "Do you want me to kiss it, too?"

"Watch it, pup, or I might make you do just that," she said with a slight smile, which made him laugh. "Anyway, I'm glad you've taken some precautions."

"I had to get the Princess to do it. I have no idea how to cast that spell. But I'm gonna learn," he said adamantly. "It's just too darn useful for when I move into my own place."

"Well, it sure works," she said, rubbing her nose again. "Now get me some tea."

Attending to that task took most of the time, the clock giving the final warning just as the teapot started to whistle, and he managed to get her tea out to her and back inside and well away from any window that might let a pony see what was coming. The instant the moon crested the horizon, he gave a hiss of pain as his horn burned away and the wings tore through the skin and fur on his back, the bones and sinew quickly growing out and the flesh and tissue and skin following it a brief second later. He gave a sigh of relief when it was over, folding back his wings and reaching for a rag to clean the blood off his sides. Nightsong was sitting on the balcony sipping her tea when he stepped out enough to see her, giving him a glance as the sky darkened steadily and the moon rose. She knew he wouldn't come outside until it was completely dark, just in case anypony was looking at the tower.

Like him, she had to partially open her wings when she was seated, else the spined tips of her wingbones would scrape against the floor. That was how large her wings were, and since he was her son, he shared that unusual trait. So did every thestral in his family. That was why his thestral family was known as the Longwings in the Nightlands. Before she was Nightsong Astra, she was Nightsong Longwing.

"She should be along any time. She's usually quite punctual," Starjumper said from inside. And sure enough, before he could put the teapot away, he heard the clatter of metal-shod hooves on the balcony outside.

"Hello Nightsong!" he heard the Princess say. "It's good to see you again!"

"And it's good to see you, your Highness," she replied in a warm tone. His parents had met both her and Princess Starlight when they came to Baltimare to negotiate with Starjumper over coming to school, and his mother being who she was, Princess Twilight left Baltimare with a new friend. "Did you like the tarts?"

"Oh, they were very good!" she answered. "They were still fresh when they got here."

"I'm glad. It took some doing to get the ingredients. Some of them come from the Nightlands."

"Well, it was worth it, both me and Starlight thought they were completely delicious. Now, I already know why I'm here, so let me take care of it so you can get inside," she offered. "It won't take but a minute."

"Will Comet Tail and the foals need you to get in?"

"It only works against thestrals, so Songbird will need me to get inside. Silver Moon and Dancer will be able to cross the ward safely. Why, are they coming?"

"The family's going to come visit in a few weeks. That's the reason I'm here, to tell Star about it and make a few plans."

"The thestrals?" she asked seriously.

"Yes, ducky, we thought it might be best if we were in Canterlot when they're here. Both to have a chat with them...and to put us all in one place, and a place that's well defended. Just in case."

"I understand," Princess Twilight said soberly. "I'd be happy to host your family in the Royal Palace while you're here. That way you don't have to pay for a hotel, and you'll be in a well protected area."

"That sounds wonderful! I'll make you a thestral specialty, mushroom and starleaf casserole!"

"I'm looking forward to it. Now, give me just a minute."

Starjumper watched from inside as the Princess advanced up to the door, and her horn limned over in a lavender glow, the color of her magic. The air in the doorway seemed to shimmer briefly, a very dim light, and then it faded away. "All done. You can get in now," she said, making a grand gesture with a hoof.

"Why thank you, ducky," Nightsong said with a smile, and she trotted in without hesitation. The Princess came in behind her, and she gave him an animated smile when she saw him with his thestral wings. It was the first time she'd seen him that way. "I see you're your mother's son, Starjumper."

He had to give a dry chuckle, opening and closing his large wings deliberately. "It does run in the family," he answered.

"Now, since I'm here," she said, walking over to where he had cushions on the floor and sitting down. "Let's talk about this visit."

The two thestrals joined her, and they spent nearly an hour discussing his parents' intentions and arranging things. The Princess was going to let them stay in the palace while they were in Canterlot, more or less under the protection of the Royal Guard, but Starjumper would stay in his tower while the thestrals were there, just to make absolutely sure that he didn't accidentally cross paths with one of them in the hallways. He would, however, have Royal Guard protecting him as well, just doing it covertly. The Princess was going to station four guards on the palace balcony directly facing his tower, so they could keep the tower under direct supervision and respond quickly if the thestrals tried to get in. It was going to make things a bit awkward with the thestrals and his family in the palace at the same time, but there was little Princess Twilight could do about that. It was Royal tradition to domicile diplomats and emissaries of high rank in the palace, so the Night Queen's daughter and her guards were definitely important enough to extend that hospitality.

As usual when it came to Princess Twilight, she developed a very detailed and very thorough plan, from providing protection for Starjumper's family to managing the itinerary of the thestral delegation to both keep them busy and minimize the danger that they'd cross paths with his family in the halls and create an ugly international incident. She wrote everything down as they worked out their plans, and when they were done, she had a fairly long scroll of notes.

"Alright, I think we have everything covered," the Princess declared, looking over her scroll. "Can you manage closing the shop for an entire week, Nightsong?"

"We were already planning that," she answered. "The shop will be alright. It's not the first time we've closed it for a week to go on vacation."

"Oh, okay. Good, I didn't want your shop to lose business," she said with a nod. "You and your family can get here the day before the thestrals are scheduled to arrive and leave the day after they do. I'm sure we can keep them entertained for a week. There's a lot to see and do here in Canterlot." There was a sound out on the balcony, and Starjumper stood up respectfully and bowed when Princess Starlight filed into the apartment through the open door. "There you are, Starlight," the Princess said with a smile.

"I was wondering if you forgot to come back," she chided lightly.

"Sort of. Come in and we'll get you up to speed."

Starjumper felt a bit awkward having both Princesses in the apartment, sitting side by side and discussing Princess Twilight's plan, but it was an awkwardness his mother certainly didn't share. She was too outgoing and fearless to be intimidated by just about anypony, or any social situation. Granted, she didn't exactly follow social conventions--the truth was, she could be quite embarrassing--but she certainly wasn't afraid of them. The fact that she had the audacity to call both Princesses ducky was proof of that. "Does it sound like a good plan, Starlight?" Princess Twilight asked her after going over the scroll in detail.

"It does to me," she answered with a nod, ruffling her wings a bit. Like Princess Cadence, Princess Starlight's wings weren't a solid color. The leading edges were the same color as her fur, but her feathers darkened to a dark blue close to the color of her mane at the tips, creating a gradual shift in color that Starjumper felt was quite handsome. "It puts protection on both Starjumper and his family without making it obvious, it keeps his family entertained while they're here, and it lets us keep an eye on Moonblade while she's here by keeping her movements under control. If we can keep her in the palace, she can't cause any mischief."

"That's what I was thinking," Princess Twilight nodded. "I'll go over this with Captain Flash Sentry in the morning, so he can organize the guard schedule."

"I'll tell Comet Tail about this when I get home tonight," Nightsong added. "We'll be here on the eighteenth on the first train in from Baltimare."

"I'll talk to the railroad and find out when it's supposed to arrive, so I can have some ponies there to greet you," Princess Twilight mumbled, writing a new line on her list. "And I'll make sure to make myself available to alter the ward so Songbird can get into the tower. I'm sure you'd like to spend that evening with Starjumper, and that close to the thestral delegation arriving, he won't be leaving the tower until after the thestrals leave. In fact, he should be restricted to the tower three days before they're scheduled to arrive, just in case they get here early," she amended. "I'll need to talk to the Headmistress and arrange for him to do his schoolwork from here while he's restricted. And I can make up some reason why he's here. We have to keep this under the table."

"Easy enough. Starjumper, I think you're going to be a naughty colt around the fifteenth," Nightsong said with a wink at him. "And you're gonna get your misbehaving rump suspended from school and grounded for two whole weeks. Then, after the thestrals leave, I do believe that the Princess will show mercy on you and rescind your punishment."

"Now that's sneaky, and hides the real reason perfectly. I knew I had a reason to like you, Nightsong," Princess Starlight laughed.

"A free pass to get myself suspended? I can think of several ways to cash in that favor," he said with a dark smile that made all three of the mares burst into laughter.

"Don't make a mess, I have to clean it up, you know!" Princess Twilight warned with a grin. "But yes, I think that's the perfect idea, Nightsong. Ponies will be too busy talking about him being suspended to connect the dots. Sometimes, we can use Canterlot's gossip machine in our favor," she said with a sly sidelong look at her sister Princess before making more notes on her scroll. "Alright, I think we've covered just about everything. Anypony have any suggestions?"

"Nope, sounds solid to me," Princess Starlight replied.

"I don't see any problems with it, your Highness," Starjumper agreed.

"It's a good plan, ducky," Nightsong nodded.

"Alright then. I'll get started on this list tomorrow morning. Nightsong, you get your family ready. Starjumper, you just keep doing what you're doing."

"I'm not really doing anything."

"And you're doing a great job, so keep it up," she grinned at him, which made Nightsong and Princess Starlight laugh. "Oh, keep your schedule open for Saturday after sunset," she added, looking at his wings. "We're going to have a very long talk about your condition, and I want to do a few tests."

He gave his mother a pained look when the Princess looked away. Princess Starlight caught it, and rolled her eyes a bit with a compassionate smile in silent agreement with his impending discomfort. The Princess was well known to be scholarly to the point of obsessive aggravation, and no doubt Princess Starlight had suffered the receiving end of it at some time in their long friendship.

After the Princesses finished up, and Nightsong spent a good half an hour chatting with both of them to catch up on things, Starjumper eventually managed to get them on their way. And since it was dark enough outside now, he and his mother ended up taking a flight. They far preferred to do their talking on the wing, with the crisp night air and the milky starlight caressing the night shadows. The two of them were flying out away from Canterlot to the southwest, towards Ponyville, and they discussed the Princess' plan between them, mainly talking about how it was going to affect the family. And it was a chance to pass along some personal information in a private setting.

"I got another letter from Shadowstep yesterday," she told him. "That's three in a week, and this one makes it clear that there's another letter out there that hasn't reached Baltimare yet. I think he sent one about every day after the Night Queen took the throne, and they're not arriving in the same order he sent them."

"What did it say?"

"More or less just confirming what we already know. That the Night Queen arranged an official visit, and what day they're supposed to arrive. He did talk about a few other things, though. It seems that they found another gallery behind the back wall of the cave, and they've broken into it and are clearing out the stalactites. He said it nearly tripled the size of the house. The cave's now bigger than the old homestead, and he rather likes it."

“Nice. He always does complain about how small the cave is in his letters." He sighed. "I still can’t help feeling partially responsible for him losing his house."

“He’s gotten over it, Star. He knows I’m happy, and he said it was worth losing the house to see me happy.”

“He really is a good brother to you, Mom.”

“Yes he is, Star. I hope someday you get to meet him.”

“Me too.” They banked slightly to the south, the lights of Ponyville coming into view in the distance. Nightsong then caught him up on everything going with his family back in Baltimare, from Dancer’s new lessons in magic to Songbird’s success in a school play. Songbird was a wonderful singer, just like her mother, and it was her dream to be the first thestral that broke into the big time on Bridleway.

“Oh, and I’m sure you’ll be happy to hear that Dancer lost her baby incisor, and the new tooth growing in is a fang,” she said proudly. “I was starting to worry about that filly.”

“You’re terribly biased, Mother.”

“No foal of mine is going to be fangless,” she said adamantly, which made him chuckle. “I may have lost the fight with your father over just about everything else, but I was positive that she was going to have proper fangs.”

“You lost that fight over most of us. Songbird’s the only full thestral.”

“Well, your father is a tough old unicorn that’s hard to beat, which makes him a challenge worthy of a thestral,” she noted, which made him laugh. Nightsong had long made those running jokes about how their foals looked, how if they had horns or wings or thestral features were some kind of competition between the two of them.

“She’s gonna bite her lip so many times until she gets used to it,” he predicted. “How does she feel about it?”

“She’s the only one of you four that wasn’t born with fangs, so she’s happy about it,” she replied. “I’m curious to see if that means her spider magic is going to manifest."

“It’s possible,” Starjumper nodded. “The fangs do represent her thestral heritage, and the magic that's part of it.”

“It wouldn't be the first time the magic manifested late. That's what happened with Silver Moon. He couldn't use spider magic until he was nearly five. That poor colt, I'm surprised I didn't give him brain damage, all the times I'd push him against a wall or ceiling and try to get him to stick and he'd just fall down," she admitted, which made him chuckle. She looked down towards Ponyville. “Surprised we can see Princess Twilight’s castle from here.”

“It is pretty big. And garish,” he mused. "I don't think she knows how it looks to thestral eyes. All those clashing colors, it's almost giving me a headache," he complained.

“How’s that working?”

“With Princess Twilight?" he asked, to which she nodded. "I’m still doing the lessons she sends, and they’re getting harder and harder,” he answered. “The last assignment she gave was writing an essay about time magic. Seriously, what do I know about time magic?” he complained. “I’m fairly sure I’m gonna get it back tomorrow with about thirty nasty notes about everything I got wrong. I'm surprised she didn't save the letter writing and start lecturing me right there in the living room.”

Nightsong laughed. “She’s been putting you through your paces,” she observed. “Is Saturday the first time she's gonna study you up close?"

“Yeah, and I'm a bit surprised. Given it took her this long to say anything, I thought she was saving that for right before I leave, so she doesn’t have me around being mad at her,” he answered, which made her laugh. “I still can’t figure out how she knew about me, Mother. Who I am, what I can do, everything. She even knew I can teleport.”

“Celestia and Luna know just about everything, Star, and no doubt she was briefed before the Princesses went on their sabbatical. But, I’m not complaining, and neither is your father. He knew he couldn’t teach you properly. He was ecstatic that you came here to learn, because he was afraid you’d never achieve your true potential studying under him and using the family library.”

“He taught me more than that school teaches their students,” he snorted. “And Father’s a much stronger magician than me. And Dancer is going to eclipse both of us, maybe even put together.”

“Son, your father has told me many times that you are far beyond him,” she said seriously. “It’s not how strong you are that he didn’t think he could manage, it’s how smart you are. He says that you understand magic better than him, you see things in the magic he never even considered, so it was very hard for him to teach you. All he could do was teach you the spells, where you were teaching him about how magic worked. He said he learned from you nearly as much as you learned from him,” she said seriously. “Your father and Dancer may be stronger than you, but you are smarter than them. Much, much smarter.”

He gave her a long look.

“Don’t believe me? Ask your father when we come to Canterlot,” she grinned. “And you’re exactly where you need to be, son. You’re learning things your father could never teach you. And you’re where you have friends.”

"I have a student, not a friend," he corrected.

"I know a friendly pony when I see one, ducky," she told him. "That mare likes you, and I know you like her. That's what friend means."

He looked away, unable to refute that statement. "I...do have something to tell you about that," he said, looking back at her. "She's more clever than I expected."

"Oh? In what way?"

"She figured out that I can teleport," he answered. "Just by how I talk about the spell. She told me that I can't possibly know what i know if I didn't know how to use the magic, and then told me that I didn't have to admit or deny what I can do, since I obviously keep it a secret, so I can teach her the way I want to without worrying about her figuring it out. Since, you know, she already knows. She told me that if it's my secret, then it's her secret," he mused.

Nightsong laughed brightly. "I knew that mare was something special!" she declared. "And she understands you a lot better than I thought."

"That she does," he admitted quietly. "And that's a little unsettling. But...I'm not scared of her knowing. I was...I was proud of her when she told me she knew. I was proud that she managed to figure it out, proud that my student is being observant enough to see what's unseen."

"Son, you should consider something."

"What?"

"We've told you that your secret is your own. It's yours to keep, and it's also yours to reveal."

He gave her a long, nearly harsh look.

"You should start to consider if it might be best if this mare knows the truth. I know it makes it hard on you keeping it from her, and no doubt it causes problems in your relationship."

"We don't have a relationship, mother. I'm being paid to a do a job for her," he corrected, almost primly. "I am her teacher, she is my student, and she's paying me a nearly obscene amount of money to teach her magic. That is our relationship."

"Look me in the eyes and say that again, ducky," she challenged, giving him a direct stare. "If she learned one of your secrets and she proves she's trustworthy, you should consider telling her the others. That way you can have at least one solid friend in Canterlot, one that understands who you are and how it shapes your life much better, somepony you can talk to in both the day and the night. I'm sure it's lonely there by yourself."

"I'm used to being alone," he answered, without much conviction. "And having one friend won't make a difference either way."

“One friend is just the beginning, son,” she told him with a smile. “If you could find one pony out there that you’d allow to know your secret, there are bound to be others. You just have to go out there and find them, Star. They’re out there. Don’t shut yourself up in your apartment and try to live your entire life contained by those walls. It’s not who you are. It’s not who you were meant to be,” she said seriously.

“I already am who I’m meant to be, Mother,” he answered her evenly.

“Take it from your mother, Starjumper. Not yet,” she told him. “You have a little more growing up to do before you find your truth. And I think here, in Canterlot, you’re on the right path. You’re seeing what the world beyond Baltimare can offer you, and seeing where you can fit into that world. Don’t hide from it, son. Go out and find it. Embrace it! Act like a thestral, for Luna’s sake!” she said teasingly. “And you can start with Summer Dawn. That’s a fine young mare, son, and she’s rich,” she said enticingly.

“Mother.”

“What? I’m not allowed to wish my son marries up?” she asked lightly. “It’s my job to make sure you marry better than I did,” she winked.

“I’m sure Dad would love to know about this part of the conversation,” he threatened, which made her laugh.

“How can I possibly have married up when I married a unicorn?” she said with false superiority. “Sometimes I wonder what insanity possessed me. The only thing I got out of this whole deal was four good foals. And only one and a half thestrals out of the lot,” she complained, which made him laugh helplessly.

“You’re impossible.”

“And so are you. It proves you’re my son,” she replied with a sly smile at him.

Decisions

There was definitely something going on.

Keeping his head straight as he walked from Donut Joe's diner to school, Starjumper kept his ears open for the distinct sound of a specific pony's hooves, the unicorn that had been following him for the fourth day in a row. He'd first noticed the unicorn on Tuesday, after his lesson with Summer Dawn ended and he came out to get his meal from the Tasty Treat. The stallion had covertly followed him from the restaurant back to his apartment, and it alerted him because that selfsame stallion had been at Donut Joe's diner that morning and had followed him to school. It was a fairly large older male unicorn with a grayish-brown coat and black mane and tail cut short. He always wore a black bowler hat, of all things, and yesterday he'd been wearing a coat and carrying an umbrella due to the rain. He'd been outside the diner each of the last four mornings and outside the Tasty Treat on Tuesday afternoon, and the previous four days, he followed Starjumper literally right to the door of the library...just not too closely. He was staying back just far enough to keep Starjumper in sight but not so close that he thought Starjumper would notice him.

And perhaps he might not have, if Starjumper was like most other ponies. His training with teleportation made him far more observant than the average pony, far more aware of what was around him, and he'd noticed that the same pony was in a place he visited and then followed him from that place the first time it repeated itself. Wednesday morning had confirmed it, Thursday morning had given him the chance to get a look at the stallion without him knowing he was being watched, and now, the fourth morning he was being followed, now Starjumper was considering just who that pony was and what he was after.

He wasn't a Royal guard. Starjumper could tell that much. He was a bit too pudgy to be in the EUP, and his mane and tail didn't show the telltale residual effects of being under the effect of the Uniform Spell, the spell that the guards used to all look the same. Same coat color, same mane color, same mane style. The guards used that spell to all look alike to make it harder for a potential enemy to single one of them out, and make them harder to bribe or extort, since they all looked the same and a potential criminal wouldn't know exactly who he was talking to. That spell left lingering effects on a guard even after it wore off, effects that a skilled magician could sense, and this pony did not have those lingering traces of magic infusing his coat and mane.

If he wasn't a Royal Guard, then that meant that he was not friendly. Princess Twilight wouldn't hire a freelancer to keep a passive eye on him. That pony was not following him as a friend, so that meant that he was following him as an enemy.

And Starjumper Astra didn't like being tailed by hostile ponies.

He hadn't quite decided what he wanted to do about it yet, but he was definitely going to do something about it. And it was not going to be pretty.

Taking a sip of his coffee, he passed the Royal Palace and walked onto the manicured lawn of the school, and sure enough, the pony was back there. About a half a block behind him, behind Fancy Pants no less, who was walking towards the school as quickly as he could and still look dignified. Summer Dawn's father was carrying a pair of saddlebags with his magic, and when he looked in Starjumper's direction, he changed course and came right towards him.

Well...this was new. Fancy Pants and Fleur de Lis had lurked around Starjumper for a couple of weeks after he agreed to tutor Summer Dawn, no doubt trying to get into a position where they could "accidentally" cross paths with him and strike up a conversation, but now he was being a tad more direct.

Seeing him made Starjumper consider the possibility that it was Fancy Pants that hired that tailer pony. Keeping an eye on the stallion tutoring his daughter, trying to find out more about him. He certainly had the money to do it, he was the richest pony in Canterlot.

"I say, my dear stallion, hold up!" he called loudly, very nearly breaking into a canter. "I'm terribly glad I ran into you!"

"What do you need, sir?" he asked innocently.

"Do be a gentlecolt and give this to Summer Dawn. She picked up her mother's saddlebags by accident this morning," he said, offering the saddlebags in Starjumper's direction. Starjumper took command of it, the socialite's magic replaced by his own around the saddlebags. "And tell her that her mother will pick up her saddlebags from her at lunch. Now I do apologize for being so terribly rude, but I am late for a very important appointment! Good day, my good stallion! And thank you for saving me precious time!"

And with that, Fancy Pants turned and hustled towards the Royal Palace's main gate, trying very hard to run without looking like he was running.

Starjumper regarded the bags. They did look like the ones Summer Dawn had carried all week, and the fact that she tended to switch them out for different ones from time to time to keep up with the latest Canterlot fashion explained how she could pick up the wrong ones. He also remembered Summer Dawn telling him that her father was a notorious prankster, and it almost made him morbidly curious if a smoke bomb would go off if he opened the saddlebag flap.

He'd let Summer Dawn dare that little adventure.

He entered the library and made his way to his favorite table, and found Summer Dawn already there, looking quite perplexed as she pulled a very fancy dress out of her saddlebag. She glanced up at Starjumper when he approached, then gave a relieved laugh when he held up her saddlebags.

"Thank Celestia, I thought Dad played a prank on me!" she said, taking command of them with her magic, the aura around them shifting from gold to pink.

"He all but chased me down out on the campus," Starjumper mused. "I thought he was trying to waylay me again."

"I told him to stop that," she winked at him, putting the clothes back in her mother's saddlebag and then pulling several scrolls and an ink pot from her own.

"He said that your mom would stop by during lunch and pick up her saddlebags," he relayed.

"Okay," she said, unrolling a scroll and putting weights on the ends out of her saddlebag to keep it open. Starjumper knew enough about her to know that it was all for show. She didn't have to read anything with him there to explain everything to her. "Alright, we picking up where we left off?"

He nodded as he sat down beside her, then cast the newest spell he'd learned. A line of magic shot up from his horn over them, stopped, then spread into a dome that enclosed the table. It was a dome of silence spell, which would let them talk without disturbing the other library patrons. Princess Twilight had sent him the spell on Tuesday evening, and he devoted most of Wednesday morning and part of the afternoon learning how to cast it. "There we go," he declared.

"I want to learn that spell!" she said eagerly.

"Later, we have a lot of more important work to do," he answered. "Alright, let's run down transfiguration from the beginning."

"No sweat."

They'd been working on the spell most of the week, and both of them were doing so. Transfiguration was one of the spells that Starjumper hadn't learned, so this was new magic to him. And he'd made marked progress for the three days he'd been working on it, gaining a grasp on the fundamental mechanics of the spell and managing to cast its most basic version, a spell that changed something into something else that was very similar to it in substance and consistency. The spell would let him change a non-living object within its major kingdom, mineral to mineral and vegetable to vegetable, but only change it into something that closely matched its original condition. He couldn't use the spell to turn a piece of glass into a gold nugget, but he could turn a gold nugget into a silver nugget, or change a log into a wooden chair or an orange into a plum. The most basic version of the spell was charged, meaning that it wore off and the object would return to normal, but the advanced variants of the spell were permanent.

The most advanced version of the spell, and something he wasn't sure he'd be able to cast, worked on living beings. And it too was permanent, at least within certain boundaries. Using that spell, he could change himself into a griffon or a dragon, but he'd retain his horn because of how the spell worked, because it was an integral part of the very substance of who and what he was. The spell didn't alter the substance of what the subject was, so Starjumper would still be a Lykan even if he used the spell on himself, and would change into a thestral at moonrise no matter what shape the spell gave him. The main limitation of that version of the spell was that it could only change something alive into something else alive. It wouldn't change a pony into a park bench, but it could turn a pony into a ladybug.

Oddly enough, versions of the spell would change inanimate objects into living things, but those spells all had the same limitation: the spell was always permanent. He could chage a rock into a bird, and it would never change back. Once life was bestowed upon something using magic, it could not be taken away. There were very specific spells that mimicked the appearance of life in a transfigured object, allowing a unicorn to change a rock into something that looked and acted like a bird, but it wouldn't be truly alive, and thus could be changed back. Those kinds of constructs were called golems in magical science, inanimate objects made to resemble life and bestowed with animation, and constructs that imitated an intelligent being like a pony was called a homonculus.

At least if that was allowed. Spells that created a homonculus were strictly forbidden by Equestrian law. It was a crime to create one. It was a crime to even own the spell without explicit permission from the Princess herself.

Only the most powerful of magicks could change something living into something non-living, like the Elements of Harmony, but not even those powerful relics could remove the life from the changed creature. It would take magical artifacts as powerful as the Elements to do something like turn Discord to stone, as they had done in the distant past, but being subjected to that mighty spell was not fatal. And if the spell were ever reversed, then the subject would be alive, in the exact same state they were in when the spell changed them. So, the Elements could turn Starjumper to stone for a thousand years, and when they changed him back, he'd be the same age he was when he was turned to stone...and by then would probably be completely insane, since he would be awake and aware for those thousand years of being trapped in the prison of his own petrified body.

Needless to say, Starjumper found the sphere of transfiguration spells to be quite fascinating, and he'd enjoyed studying them. It was new magic, magic not in his family library, and he could see some real use for it. Using this magic, he could just cast a spell to make a piece of furniture, and the most advanced versions of the spell would allow him to create some very complex objects consisting of multiple types of material, like a padded, upholstered chair. It contained wood, feathers, fabric, and metal rivets, and those disparate materials increased the difficulty of the spell when it was cast. The more complex the object, the more magical power it took to transform something into it.

And that explained to him why the most advanced and powerful versions of the spell worked on living things, because living things were exceptionally complex objects. Muscle, bone, skin, sinew, teeth, organs, they were all insanely complex.

The spell was right up his alley, because it depended on the imagination of the caster. The caster had to be able to accurately and completely picture or imagine the object he wanted to create with transifiguration, and his skill with teleportation definitely applied itself to this magic. He was able to imagine an object with exacting detail and clarity thanks to his mnemonic training, and that allowed him to transfigure up some seriously intricate objects.

So, since this was new magic for both of them, they'd been working on it together. And he could admit that he was impressed by Summer Dawn. She had managed to cast the most basic version of the spell within three days, and now she was working on mastering one of the five required uses of the spell to pass the block of instruction, changing a block of wood into a fully formed dinner plate. The more detailed and intricate the plate, the higher the score she would receive.

Her tongue sticking out a tiny bit, Summer Dawn's eyes were focused on the small piece of wood sitting on the table, no doubt considering the spell parameters. They weren't allowed to practice spells in the stacks, it was too disruptive to the study of the ponies around them, but there were three rooms in the library where active spellcasting practice was permitted. Those were "magic labs" of a sort in the library, rooms with just a table and chairs in them that would allow students to practice the spells they studied in the stacks. Starjumper had noticed the first time they used one that the walls in them were reinforced, and there were a few very old burn marks and faint scars on the walls from prior students' more interesting spellcasting failures.

"Okay, I think I got it," she said. "I can see the plate in my mind. I know its size, I can see the decorative design on it. I see the gold leaf rim around the edge."

"What makes this more demanding than the basic use of the spell?"

"I'm changing the object's mass," she replied immediately. "The plate will be lighter than the block of wood it was made from."

"Stage it."

Her horn flared with pink magical energy, and she built the staged spell. The librarians didn't object to them staging spells, since they didn't actively cast them. He couldn't see her work with his eyes, but he could sense it, sense the matrix of the spell she built, one of the first skills that he had taught her. "Correct," he intoned.

She beamed at him. "Okay, lemme practice this a little while, get comfortable with this matrix. It's more complicated than I expected."

"Yeah, I have to admit, this spell is pretty involved," he agreed. "No wonder it's taught in your final year. But they don't require us to learn the most useful versions of the spell."

"You're supposed to learn them on your own," she told him absently, staring at the piece of wood. "It's about getting you interested enough in the basic spell to where you study the more advanced versions and applications on your own. That's why they award bonus points if you can cast variants or use advanced applications not taught in class in the exams. You know, like encouraging us to develop study habits to go beyond the curriculum. They've been doing it since eighth grade."

"I'm not sure I agree with that approach," Starjumper grunted.

"It worked on you, didn't it?" she asked.

He gave her a firm look, and she just grinned at him and winked.

"Don't get sassy," he retorted, which made her laugh.

They spent the rest of the morning working on transfiguration, and Starjumper felt that both of them made some marked progress. Summer Dawn started working on the next variant of the spell after demonstrating aptitude with the one she learned yesterday, and Starjumper was working on the most difficult version since he'd already mastered all the other variants. Really, the only difficult version of the spell was the final one for any pony that knew how to study magic, knew magical theory and spellshaping techniques.

That was the most important thing his father ever taught him. Not how to cast spells, but how to understand the spells he studied, how to see the similarities in the way magic worked between spells and learn new spells based on what he knew of spells he could already cast. The learning method was called the School Theory, and it was the very first thing his father taught him, even before teaching him the simplest of spells. That method allowed him to learn new magic quickly by relating it to other magic, a process by which spells were grouped into categories, or "schools," based on how the magic that powered them had to be manifested and applied. Spells with different purposes were often related to one another based on how magic was applied to create the effect, and if one learned a spell from one category, that knowledge could be applied to other spells in the same category. It just came down to taking the basic application of how the magic was manifested and tailoring it to produce that specific effect.

When the lunch bell rang, they both stopped what they were doing and left the table, leaving their books and materials at the table, which was a warning to the students that would be coming to the library for afternoon self-study that the table was taken. Summer Dawn did pick up her mother's saddlebags and carried them along in her magic, however. Starjumper walked out with Summer Dawn, and saw Fleur de Lis standing just down the steps of the library's entrance. She advanced on them quickly, coming up the steps, and seeing the two of them together, Starjumper would almost think that they were sisters instead of mother and daughter. Fleur de Lis looked very youthful, didn't look anywhere near as old as she was, and was still quite slim and graceful. She could still make tons of money as a supermodel if she wanted to, she hadn't lost a single step in the beauty department. And standing together, it reminded him how much Summer Dawn resembled her mother. Seriously, if Summer Dawn dyed her mane and tail the same shade of pink as her mother's, they'd be hard to tell apart with a casual glance.

"So, are you finally going to introduce us, daughter?" Fleur de Lis asked, giving Starjumper an earnest smile.

"Mom, this is Starjumper. Star, this is my mom, Fleur de Lis."

"A pleasure to meet you," she said in a silky voice, touching hooves with him in greeting. "Let me tell you how much we approve of what you've done for our daughter. She's never been so confident about school," she said with a smile. "And the spells she shows us when she comes home! You have turned her into quite the accomplished magician! You are truly a gifted tutor."

"Thank you, ma'am," he said modestly. "I can't take all the credit, though. If she wasn't so good at magic, I'd look a whole lot worse."

"Star!" Summer Dawn said with a laugh.

"And she has said you are teaching her shield spells?"

"We've already started on them," he answered. And that was true enough, he'd started her on the spell theory behind shield spells on Tuesday, and she'd grasped that theory very quickly, proving how smart she was. Today, he was going to teach her the spell matrix of the most basic shield spell, the planar shield. "She'll be learning her first spell matrix today," he added.

"I am? Awesome!" she said in sudden glee.

"I think you're ready," he nodded with a neutral expression. His eyes wandered past the two of them, and he saw the bowler hat pony standing at the edge of campus, at the corner of the wall surrounding the Royal Palace. He didn't react, didn't keep his eyes on the pony, he simply looked back to Summer Dawn's mother casually. His horn flared with golden magic, and to the bowler hat pony's vision, he took command of the saddlebags and offered them to Fleur de Lis. But odds are he missed the spell he cast simultaneously with that levitation spell, a true doublecast by casting both at the same time, a rather unique spell that he locked on that bowler hat. The spell was designed by his father, a variant of a simple auditory illusion spell that caused the spell to emit a particular sound, but a sound which was far too highly pitched for pony ears to hear it. It was, however, audible to a thestral. His father had tailored the spell to allow Nightsong to quickly find him when he was out in town, because the sound was blatantly obvious to any threstral within four blocks of the spell's focus. If she heard that sound, she knew that Comet Tail needed her to come to him. It wasn't really meant to be a tracking spell to hunt down tailers, but it was going to work well for Starjumper in this situation. He'd charged the spell to last until sunrise tomorrow, giving him plenty of time to hunt down bowler hat pony after dark.

The side effect of the spell was that it drove bats nuts, the sound irritated them and made them very aggressive. After nightfall, bats would surround whatever building the hat was in, and if bowler hat pony came out wearing it, the bats would attack the hat to silence it, to make the sound stop. When Starjumper came out tonight to find that pony, the swarm of bats over bowler hat pony's house would tell him which direction to go if wasn't close enough to hear the sound himself.

The spell could only be cast on inanimate objects, and lucky for him, that unicorn seemed quite attached to that hat.

"Thank you very much. I was quite surprised when I found schoolbooks in the saddlebag I left on the kitchen table," she chuckled. "I thought her father had switched them on me."

"Summer Dawn did tell me a couple of stories about her father," he said mildly, which made Summer Dawn laugh.

"They're true," she grinned. "And I wish I had more time to get to know you, Starjumper, but I need to get these saddlebags where they're supposed to go before noon. Making an appointment with Silver Needle can be a beast sometimes, he's always so busy, and I need both of these dresses altered by Monday," she told them, settling the saddlebags over her back and buckling them on. "Perhaps you'd like to come to dinner on Sunday?"

"I think Summer Dawn told you the answer I'd give to that," he said calmly.

She gave a titter of laughter. "She did. But that doesn't mean I still won't ask," she said with a smile. "And consider that an open invitation, Starjumper. We would be overjoyed to have you over, to learn more about the stallion that has turned our little girl's grades around. And please, keep it up. I can't tell you how much I love to see this new confidence in my daughter," she said with a loving smile at Summer Dawn, reaching over and putting her hoof under Summer Dawn's chin lovingly. "Your lessons have been good for her in more ways than just her grades. Will you be home at the usual time, Summer?"

"Most likely," she replied, blushing a bit over the praise.

"I'll tell Withers," she nodded. "He'll be setting dinner precisely at sunset."

"Okay. Thanks, Mom," she replied.

She gave an elegant nod, then turned and started down the stairs.

"Wanna go to the cafè?" Summer Dawn offered. "My treat."

"I have something to do," he answered. "And I may be a little late coming back from lunch."

"Don't let them catch you trying to sneak back in."

He gave her a level stare, and she burst out laughing.

Summer Dawn didn't bother going down the steps, she showed off a tiny bit by levitating herself. She rose up a goodly distance and then started drifting in the direction of the restaurant, and more than a few ponies who'd come out of the buildings were looking up at her...a tad wistfully.

Starjumper returned to his apartment rather than eat lunch in the cafeteria, a disruption of his usually rigid schedule, mainly because he wanted to pull bowler hat pony somewhere that he could get a very good look at him without the pony knowing it. Starjumper entered the apartment and prepared what he needed for the spell, taking a small mirror and setting it so that its face was pointing at the window beside the door, then went up to the upstairs writing desk, a position completely out of sight from any direction but the Royal Palace. He put another mirror on the desk, and then he sat down at it and cast another spell.

This was the most advanced spell he knew outside of teleportation, and it took him a while to build the spell matrix and then release it. The mirror on the desk in front of him started to glow with golden magical light, and then his reflection vanished from the mirror and a view of the campus and street took its place. He was looking through the mirror set by the window downstairs, which he had placed so he could see the likely place where bowler hat pony would lurk to wait for him to leave the apartment.

This was scrying magic, and it was an extremely advanced and demanding magical discipline. This was a spell that only dedicated unicorn magicians could learn and use.

A few minutes later, he was proven right. Bowler hat pony wandered into the field of view of the mirror, and Starjumper adjusted the magic to center him in his view, then the image enlarged as the magic zoomed in on him, focused on him. That was part of the spell, the ability to control what he could see through the mirror as long as what he wanted to see was visible to the mirror's face. He was a middle aged pony, a bit pudgy, his cutie mark was a magnifying glass, and looked...weathered. Unlike most ponies his age, he wore no beard or moustache. He only wore the hat, and Starjumper could see that the hat was old, but it was also made of quality materials and was well maintained. That was not a cheap hat. His mane and tail were also expertly styled, Starjumper noted. It was a very simple style, but it was done by an expert stylist. Again, that took money.

So, this was not a poor unicorn. This stallion had money, money to afford the hat, afford having a very good manestylist cut his mane. It told Starjumper that if this pony was hired to tail Starjumper, then he was a professional investigator. He was paid to do things like this, he was paid well, and that meant that he was good at his job.

He watched bowler hat pony for several moments, until he got a break. The stallion took a small pad from under his hat and wrote something down in it using a very small pencil, his horn glowing in a soft emerald green radiance--important detail, knowing the color of a unicorn's magic would identify them from a distance--and then took off his hat, put the pad back in, and then put his hat back on.

Starjumper had seen what he needed to see.

Staring intensely at the image in the mirror, he ended the spell, then took a deep cleansing breath and closed his eyes. His horn flared with brilliant golden magic, and he cast another spell, this one not quite as advanced, but one that was extremely useful. He opened his eyes again and looked into the mirror, which was glowing with golden magic, and an image appeared.

A memory, projected into the mirror that he could see with his eyes instead of in his mind's eye.

Starjumper had been very wise in his choice of vantage points for his mirror. As he suspected, when bowler hat pony wrote in his notepad, the reflection of what he was writing was visible in the window of the bakery in front of which he stood. The spell allowed him to create a visual image of anything he had seen, and since he had seen that image just seconds ago, the detail of the image in the mirror was so exact that it was almost like a picture, including being able to make out the hornwriting in the reflection. It was backwards, reversed due to the reflection, but Starjumper could read reversed writing. He could also read upside-down writing, but that wouldn't be much of a surprise to anypony that had seen him sitting on a wall or ceiling. All threstrals were quite skilled at reading upside-down writing.

11:36: Subject entered apartment. Deviation from standard routine.

That answered it. He was a private investigator. But the question that arose from that answer was who hired him to follow Starjumper around.

He would find out tonight.

He ended the spell and stood up, then came down to the first floor and pulled a few random books out of his bookshelf, making it look like he returned home to get something he forgot. He stepped out of the apartment with the books in tow in his magic, closed and locked the door, and started towards the building holding the cafeteria, returning to his standard routine.

He had just enough time to grab a quick bite to eat in the cafeteria, then he returned to the library just before the afternoon bell rang. Summer Dawn was again already at the table, grinning at him from behind the dome of silence that was still active over the table. "You made it," she said as he sat down, setting the new books on the table.

"I had to go back to the apartment and pick up some books," he told her.

"I see that. Now stop goofing off and check my staging."

"Pushy, pushy," he drawled, which made her laugh.

"Hey, I'm paying you enough money to let me be pushy."

"We're on school time, not tutor time," he returned.

"We're working on a school spell."

"On my time," he retorted. "You should be paying me extra."

"You're already getting more than half my allowance every week," she challenged with amused eyes.

"You made that deal. I can't help it if you're bad at business."

"Hey!" she barked, and when she saw his slight, bland smile, she laughed helplessly.

They made some real progress that afternoon on transfiguration, and when the final bell rang, they packed up and changed venues. They returned to his apartment, and sure enough, bowler hat pony was there when they came out of the library and returned to the spot in front of the bakery, which would give him just the barest hint of a vantage point into the front windows facing the Promenade. He'd only see one of them if they were standing at the window due to the distance and height difference, but that position allowed him to see both the front door and the balcony door.

This pony was definitely a pro.

But he had more important things to worry about. Summer Dawn was quite eager as she bounced into the apartment, setting her saddlebags aside and plopping herself down on her cushion without being told. He put his books and saddlebags away, then he sat on the cushion facing her. "Shield spells," he said, which made her grin in anticipation. "I told you once that they're not as difficult as you might think to cast, but what makes them advanced magic is how many variables you have to manage with them, on top of the fact that they tend to go very wrong very fast if you mess up the casting. This spell isn't lenient or forgiving, Summer. Make the tiniest mistake in your matrix, and the spell fizzles. If the dimensions you're imagining don't match the magic you're putting into the spell, be it not enough magic or too much magic, it fizzles. And like I told you on Monday, if a foreign object gets into the spell's area as it forms, it fizzles.

"Shield spells aren't very difficult to cast, but where this spell gets you is in making it last once you cast it," he continued. "Whether you charge it or you channel it, this spell takes a lot of magic to maintain. Easy to cast, hard to maintain. I told you once that I can't create a spell that will last more than a couple of hours, but that was a spell that covered the entire tower. I could make a very small shield that might last six or seven hours, but that's it. Your shields will last considerably longer, and the shields you actively channel will be far stronger than any shield I could ever hope to make, because you're stronger in magic than I am.

"There are five different versions of this spell, Summer, and each one has a different purpose, but all shields fall into one of three categories: solid, directional, and magic. Whether a shield is magic or not can overlap with the other two, so a shield can be solid and non-magic, or solid and magic. The most basic version is a simple planar shield, a flat plane of magical force that you manifest. The advantage of this version of the spell is it takes the least amount of magic to both manifest and maintain, but the drawback is that it only protects a small area, so you have to make sure whatever you're trying to stop hits the shield. Got it so far?"

"Yup!"

"Good. The different kinds of shields are planar, angular, arc, spherical, and irregular. Those names describe the shape of the shield. A planar shield is just a flat side, like a pane of glass. An angular shield is two sides joined together at an angle. An arc shield is a section of a spherical shield, like cutting a ball into pieces. A spherical shield is just that, it completely surrounds a fixed point. And an irregular shield is a shield whose shape isn't one of the other four. A shield formed as a cube would be an irregular shield. Now, angular and irregular shields are only for practice, Summer. Don't ever try to use one for real, because they're actually easy to break at the angle where the planes join. Any serious shield you ever cast should be planar, arc, or spherical only."

"Got it."

"The three forms of shields define what they do. A solid shield is just that, it creates a barrier in both directions. It can't be crossed in either direction. A directional shield will allow something to pass through in one direction, but not the other, like that shield I created that day Nova was hanging around the tower. And a magic shield only stops magical energy. Solid objects and other forms of natural energy, like fire or electricity, can pass through a magic shield, but a spell cannot, even if the spell mimicks one of those natural forces. So, a natural bolt of lightning will go through a magic shield, but a bolt of lightning created by a magic spell will not."

"That makes sense."

"And that's an overview of shield spells. It's not that difficult in theory, and the spell actually isn't that hard to cast. But like I said, where this spell gets you is in making it stay once you cast it," he said with a slight smile. "Now, there's one final thing you have to know about shield spells, and that's a simple rule. A channeled shield is far stronger than a charged shield," he said strongly. "So, Summer, if you're ever using a shield for real, like you're in danger or you're protecting yourself from a falling brick or something, you channel the shield. A charged shield is for silly things like keeping Nova out of the apartment," he said, which made her laugh.

"Easy easy," she said confidently. "Five shapes of shields that you can create in five different ways, and a channeled shield is stronger than a charged one."

"Almost," he nodded. "There are actually four different forms, solid, directional, magical, and magical directional. A magical shield is solid by nature when it comes to magic. It won't allow magic to pass through in either direction."

"Oh, okay. I thought there was a difference between a magical shield and a solid magical shield."

"No, but it was a logical assumption to make, so don't feel bad about being wrong," he told her. "Now, let me walk you through the spell matrix for the most basic form of shield, the solid planar. Pay attention while I stage it."

And that started nearly four hours of constant practice, as he first taught her the spell matrix, and then she spent the rest of the day trying to duplicate it. Once she had the matrix memorized, he backed off and kept an eye on her as he wrote a report for Princess Twilight, laying on the wall over his writing desk rather than sitting in front of it. She didn't successfully cast the spell the entire session, and when the clock gave its three loud gongs, she gave a growl of frustration. "Aww, I was getting close!" she complained. "I almost had it!"

"You did, but three bells is three bells," he said evenly. "And you know the rules. Pack up your things."

"Alright," she said grumpily, collecting up a few books in her magic and stuffing them into her saddlebags. "And I know the other rule, even if I hate it."

"No practicing on your own unless I say you can, and you know what I'm about to tell you."

"Don't practice the spell," she sighed in frustration.

"She can be taught," he quipped dryly, but she didn't laugh. It was more of a glare. "Work on transfiguration over the weekend. You have that spell matrix down, you just need practice using it. And don't be too mad. You did almost have it, so I'm sure you'll manage to cast it early on Monday. Then you'll have all afternoon to practice it."

"Monday isn't today," she complained.

"I'll have you know that it took me almost a full moon to cast my first viable shield spell after my father taught it to me," he told her evenly. "So all things being considered, you're learning it so fast that I'm almost shocked. Far faster than I did."

She did give him a bit of a smile at his praise. "Well, I do have a good teacher," she said.

"Less schmoozing, more packing," he said crisply, which made her laugh.

"You mind some company at the Tasty Treat tomorrow?" she asked.

"Are you fishing for extra tutor time?" he challenged.

"Mmmmaybe," she admitted.

He gave her a tart look, which made her laugh again. "I have a little time tomorrow afternoon," he succumbed. "A couple of hours. I guess you can practice while I finish writing that report for school."

"Awesome! I'll be over at three! Is three okay with you?"

"Yes."

"Great, we'll go have dinner and then I can try to cast the spell before you throw me out!"

"I am going to throw you out now," he warned as he pointed at the balcony door with his hoof, which was closest to them. That made her grin impudently. "Now out with you, sassy mare. I have something I need to get done before sunset."

"You always have something you need to get done before sunset," she complained as she opened the door with her magic. She stepped out onto the balcony, enshrouded herself with her magic, and the lifted up and out of view quickly.

Well, that wasn't the first time she left in a huff, but it was happening more and more often lately. She hated leaving when she was in the middle of learning a new spell, especially since he forbade her from practicing it when he wasn't there to supervise. Given how powerful she was, if she caused a spell to misfire, the results could be potentially explosive. Especially with the power of the spells she was learning from him, since they required so much magic to cast.

Almost against his will, his mother's words flittered through his mind. It's your secret to keep, and it's also your secret to reveal.

He looked at the balcony door, and for the first time in his entire life, he actually seriously considered doing it. If he told her, she wouldn't have to leave, she'd have more time to practice. It would make things easier for him, since he wouldn't have to lie to her all the time, and that was really starting to bother him. He did like her, and it felt...it felt wrong deceiving her.

But, then the reasons he kept his secret asserted themselves in his mind. A single pony that knew put him at risk if that pony told others, and she was a society pony. There was no telling if she could keep a secret like that, the temptation to tell somepony would be absolutely overpowering. And there was no telling how knowing that secret would change how she saw him. It was entirely possible that she ran screaming from the apartment and never came anywhere near him again.

And that would crush him.

And then there was the issue of the thestrals and the Nightlands. She may not appreciate being pulled into that.

No. It was best for everypony involved if he kept the secret. It was safest for him, safest for her, and she'd probably prefer being kept in a state of blissful ignorance.

He put it out of his mind as the clock gave the second warning, causing him to retreat to the spot in the apartment he knew could not be seen through any window, giving him the utter privacy he needed for the change that was coming. He had other things to worry about tonight, mainly one bowler hat pony that was going to have a lot of very angry bats swarming around his house in just a very short while. His task tonight was to get his hooves on that notepad and see if it held the identity of the pony's employer, and the first step to that objective was to find where bowler hat pony lived.

After he changed, Starjumper waited for it to get completely dark outside, then he advanced up to where he could get a look outside. Bowler hat pony was gone, he saw, and a quick look around the city showed him what he wanted to see, a column of flittering bats circling a structure on the other side of town. The bats were honked off because of the sound the spell was making, and their attempts to get at the source of it and silence it was a beacon of angry fur and membrane in the night sky to thestral eyes.

He came out onto the balcony and took off, and he flew nearly five hundred feet up before crossing the city, to make absolutely sure that he was all but invisible in the night sky. He was a bit honestly surprised to see that the bats were surrounding not some modest rowhouse or brownstone in Old Town, where most working ponies lived in Canterlot, but a very large, very swanky manor not far from Summer Dawn's house. The oldest, richest, and most powerful unicorns in Canterlot lived in the nine mansions nestled up against the mountainside on that side of town. And bowler hat pony was in one of those mansions.

Or at least his hat was.

He swooped down and landed on the side of the wall of the manor over a window facing the mountainside, because now he could hear the spell and he quickly located the closest window to the sound. It was a bit of a buzz in his ears from that close, almost irritating, but he could still hear other sounds. The window below him was open to let in the crisp autumn air, and much to his delight, there were voices coming from the open window.

"I'll stay on the case, North Star, but I honestly don't see why. It's my professional opinion that you're wasting your gems." That voice was deep, a little raspy, the voice of a mature stallion. "The stallion never deviates from his routine. I'm not going to learn anything new. I'm not entirely sure what you want me to find."

"You find anything unusual or abnormal you can, Tracker, that I can take to the board of governors and get him removed from school," came another voice, the diction perfect and the voice practiced to be smooth and strong. The inflection told him that this was a highly educated pony...the owner of the mansion. And his name was North Star.

That was a name he knew. That was Nova's father.

"The fact that he lives by such a rigid schedule is abnormal," the investigator answered. "I've never seen a pony that young live like that. All he ever seems to do is read and study."

"And that itself is a clue," North Star replied. "And since you're an investigator, Tracker, I expect you to find out why."

"Alright. I'll keep digging and see what I can find," the investigator said. "But I'm going to warn you now, North Star. It's my professional opinion that I'm not going to find anything damaging enough to get him expelled."

Starjumper frowned, shifting a little to get his ear closer to the window without making himself visible, just in case one of them decided to walk over and look outside. So, Nova's father was trying to get him thrown out of school? No doubt Nova's father blamed Starjumper for his son being on probation, in danger of being expelled from school, and this was his answer. Not to keep his son on the straight and narrow, but to retaliate against the stallion that put his son into that situation.

Several bats flew by the window--the echo off the mountainside was preventing them from homing in on the source of the sound and flying in through the open window--and that caused one of them to walk over to it. "That's more bats than I've seen since the time I went to the Sighing Caves," the investigator said, his voice right under Starjumper...and that was a mistake. That close to the window, the bats would get a direct line on the source of the sound aggravating them...the hat.

And now that they could locate the sound, the bats attacked.

He tried very hard not to laugh when a large swarm of bats dove and entered the window, and there was a whole lot of screaming inside the room. He heard a whole lot of commotion, several breaking dishes, then the sound of a large piece of furniture overturning, and then a brief moment later, the bats boiled back out of the window. They must have torn the hat to shreds, and that disrupted the spell that was enraging them.

"What in Celestia's golden crown was that all about?" he heard North Star shout. "Why did they go after your hat?"

"I have no idea," the investigator answered, his voice clearly perplexed. "I have never seen that before. I've had that hat for years, and no bat has ever so much as landed on it."

"Well, is that something unusual and abnormal for you?" North Star demanded. "That half-bat pony mongrel comes to Canterlot, and now bats are attacking ponies! He must have something to do with it!"

The amused smile fell of Starjumper's face in a big hurry.

"With all due respect, you're being a touch absurd, North Star," the investigator unicorn said mildly. "You're under the false impression that he knows I'm following him. He has no idea who I am, so even if he could do something like make bats attack ponies, he'd have no reason to send them after me."

If he only knew.

"Just get your job done, Tracker. I want that barbaric mongrel out of my son's school by Hearth's Warming."

"I'll do my job, North Star. But like I said, you should be prepared for the possibility that I don't turn up anything."

"Oh, you will. I guarantee you will," came the answer, the voice almost seething.

He heard a pony leave the room, but Starjumper stayed where he was. He needed to get a look at this North Star so he could identify him, and he was waiting for the sound of hoofsteps coming from the room to stop. That would indicate that North Star was no longer moving, and that would let Starjumper move to a position on the mountainside facing the window to look inside without being seen himself.

But, that little conversation told him a whole lot. That investigator pony was trying to find a reason to get him thrown out of school, and doing it at the behest of the father of the pony he'd threatened. This North Star was getting his revenge on Starjumper for what happened to his son by trying to get him thrown out of school, and by association thrown out of Canterlot, given he couldn't afford to live in the city, not even on the money that Summer Dawn was paying him.

His spat with Nova was turning out to be far more serious than Starjumper expected.

And thinking of that little punk was almost prophetic, because he heard a door open, and then heard that very stallion's voice. "I'm finished, Sir," he heard Nova say.

"Bring it to me, and clean up this mess while I check your work. And I warn you now, foal, if there's even a single letter badly penned, it'll be a thousand lines tomorrow," he said in a voice of cold, almost sadistic command.

Well, that explained why Nova acted out at school. His father was a complete jerk, harsh and uncaring, maybe even abusive, so he acted out himself to make himself feel better. Starjumper had seen that before back in Baltimare with a couple of stallions from school.

"Yes, Sir," he heard Nova say in a submissive voice.

This was his chance. He turned and let go of the wall, his wings unfurling. A single powerful stroke of his wings carried him over the void between the mansion and the cliff that formed the mountainside, and he gripped the stone under his hooves when he landed and turned to look through the window. He saw Nova using his magic to clean up some broken dishes and an overturned table, restoring the broken dishes using a spell that mended damaged items. A fairly advanced spell, it showed that Nova had some potential as a magician. He was standing beside a very large, very expensive looking chair, and in it was North Star. The stallion was mature, well into middle age, with a snowy white coat and steel gray mane that was worn swept straight back and a thin, well groomed moustache and goatee. He was very thin, nearly emaciated, and that combined with the look on his face, like the world wasn't good enough to be under his hooves, made him look quite severe. He was wearing a dark green dinner jacket and a white ascot, with spats on his hooves. His horn was very long, an indication of his age, and was limned over in a dark gray nimbus of magic.

Just looking at him made Starjumper develop an instant dislike for him, despite what he'd already heard. This was the very epitome of a stuck-up Canterlot society snob, a pony that was convinced he was the highest form of life in the universe, and all other life existed for the sole purpose of giving him something to scorn.

This...this was an enemy. And Starjumper Astra was not kind to his enemies.

But, he did feel much of his animosity towards Nova slip away. Given he had to live in that house, no wonder he was so angry all the time. He lashed out because his father treated him like garbage. Starjumper actually felt sorry for the stallion.

He made sure they weren't looking towards the window, then he let go of the rock wall and vaulted back into the air, plans already forming. The first step to dealing with North Star was getting that investigator off his back, else he might see something Starjumper absolutely did not want anypony to see and ruin his life...maybe even get him killed.

There was the potential here that it might require him to get the Princess involved. He was fairly sure that she'd take a very dim view of North Star trying to get him expelled, not after all that hard work she put in to get him here and keep him here. But, the danger of that was the fact that the Princess was getting involved. if she put a hoof in, then North Star would be convinced that something very sinister was going on, and given how suspicious he was already, it might just fortify him to uncover the truth. He might think that Starjumper had cast a spell on her or something, and would convince himself that he was acting in the best interest of all of Equestria to go after Starjumper. And that kind of zealot was the worst kind, because they had the unswerving belief that they were right, no matter how many times they were proven wrong. Each time a zealot like that was proven wrong, it just made them more convinced that everpony else was wrong, more absolutely certain that they were all out to get him because he could see the truth they were deliberately denying. And ponies like that were dangerous.

No, it was best if he handled this himself, and use a light touch. There was too much danger that the whole thing could explode if the Princess got mixed up in it, given they were dealing with a society pony that could cause Princess Twilight no end of trouble if he got his hackles up. He'd get the Princess involved only if he couldn't deal with this himself. She would be his contingency plan.

So, the first step to this was dealing with the investigator, Tracker. And he had a good idea how to go about it.

Show him exactly what he expected to see.

The pony didn't think he was going to find anything. He thought he was on a wild goose chase, and that his employer was throwing his money away. If he was shown a week or two of the same old boring routine, that Starjumper's devotion to his studies dominated his life and he never deviated from his schedule, he would completely lose his motivation. He would simply go through the motions of investigating and report back to North Star that there was simply nothing there.

And this Tracker pony had better be glad that Starjumper needed to use a light touch. Given that his very life was at stake here if his secret got out, the way he should be handling this was to make Tracker disappear.

Literally.

But, this was going to take a little more digging on his part. Sending an investigator after him may not be North Star's only little scheme, and he needed to look into this pony to get a better idea of who he was, where he stood in Canterlot, and what else he may be doing to get revenge on Starjumper for humiliating his foal.

That had little to do with it, he supposed. Him humiliating Nova mattered almost nothing to a pony like North Star. What enraged him was humiliating the family name, that Nova's shame became his own by virtue of the fact that Nova was his son. That was why he was being so harsh to Nova, because Nova's shame had damaged North Star's own standing.

Given what he'd seen of North Star, he was confident that was the correct assumption.

Now that he knew about him, Starjumper kept one unicorn private investigator named Tracker very, very bored.

Starjumper's plan to deal with him was simple, but it was also working. Simply put, Tracker had virtually nothing to do over the next week except confirm that Starjumper was such a creature of habit that he was very nearly filled with clockworks. But it did more or less restrict him to the apartment at night, since he was concerned that Tracker may be casing the apartment after dark to see if he slipped out, then see him take off from the balcony. And not being able to go out and fly at night had made him a touch short-tempered. Going out to fly at night was the only real recreation he had, the only freedom he had, the only time he could relax and feel like he wasn't living in a prison, living his highly regimented life to present an image to the outside world that protected his secret. And having that taken away from him had affected him more than he expected it would.

Summer Dawn had been on the short end of that, and he really needed to make it up to her.

It had changed the plans for last Saturday a little bit. Instead of the Princess coming to the apartment for that long talk, he instead talked her into bringing him into the palace, and doing it covertly by teleporting him over. And that had taken a little bit of work to set up, since Summer Dawn was in the apartment that afternoon while he was trying to arrange things.

The week had been frustrating in more than one way. Summer Dawn was...well, she was starting to get under his skin. His mother's suggestion just kept ringing in his memory every time he was around her, and more and more, he was giving it some serious thought. It was getting harder and harder to keep things professional with her, because more and more, he felt like she was the only outlet he had here. She was a pony that had demonstrated he could invest in at least a little trust, and that made her the closest thing to a friend he had here.

Not enough trust to admit to the secret that she knew about him. Though she knew he could teleport, he still hadn't admitted it. So, he supposed, he didn't trust her as much as he thought he did.

His mother was right about one thing, though he'd never admit it to her. He was lonely. He was separated from his family, who were the only true friends he had. He had no friends here, no pony he could talk to about things that mattered to him. All he had was Summer Dawn, and while she certainly kept trying to get him to open up, was trying to get past the walls he erected around himself, the fear that she might discover what he was kept him at a distance.

And yet....

He regarded her, laying on the ceiling high over the main floor of the apartment and looking down to watch as she repeatedly created a small circular shield in front of her, maintained it for a moment, then dismissed it. She had learned the planar shield matrix and was mastering it before he moved her on to the next step, the next easiest shield to cast, which was the arc shield. She truly was a very impressive young unicorn. She had managed to cast the spell after just five days of practice, and she was quickly gaining mastery over it. That was far faster than he'd learned it.

Five days. Dear Celestia, was she ever incredible. He again felt both intimidated and humbled by her, a power that would rival an alicorn, a power that was hidden from the world by her inability to read, which had severely stunted her magical education. At this rate, she was going to master all five forms of the shield spell, and all three versions, in just another few weeks. Maybe even just two weeks, since learning the planar and arc forms of the shield would make learning angular, spherical, and irregular shields much easier. They were just more advanced versions of those two basic spells.

She'd already learned how to cast the three different versions of it, solid, directional, and magical. Those actually weren't that hard, it was just a minor variation in the spell matrix when it was formed.

"Square," he called, and she glanced up at him and dismissed her circular shield. The next one she formed was a square. "Triangle," he called, and she quickly answered his challenge. "The silhouette of a pony."

She gave him a surprised look, then bit her tongue a little bit, the tip sticking out, and her horn flared with bright pink energy. And to his pleasant surprise, she pulled it off. She was panting a bit from the effort after the shield formed, but she'd done it.

If she could pull that off, then she was ready.

"That...was...hard," she panted after she dismissed the shield.

"Yes it is," he agreed. "And now you know not to get too creative if you're ever using this spell for real. Keep it simple. You're not trying to impress whatever's attacking you with how pretty your shield is, you're trying to repel it. Function over style when the chips are on the table, Summer Dawn. Function over style."

"Okay," she said, getting her breath back. "Give me a minute. I feel wiped out."

"I'm not surprised. And well done, by the way."

She beamed a smile up at him. "Did you hear the news, Star? There are some thestrals coming to Canterlot from the Nightlands for a state visit."

"Oh, I know about it," he replied evenly.

"Is that why your family's coming here? To visit with them?"

He looked down at her. "Not quite," he replied. "The Princess invited them to Canterlot to have a holiday, and it's just coincidence they're coming the same week the thestrals will be here. She likes my mother, they met when the Princess came to Baltimare to talk to me about coming here. My family can't close the store until the brick season is done, so they couldn't come immediately."

"You said brick season ends on the first day of winter."

"Yes. They can't make bricks in the cold, it makes the bricks brittle."

"But that's tomorrow," she said.

"Well, it takes a while to arrange to close the shop for a week, Summer," he told her mildly. "Everypony in the district has to know so they can either stock up or make arrangements to shop somewhere else. It's bad business to upset your customers."

"Ohhhh," she said with a nod. "I'm looking forward to meeting your family."

He gave her a glance. "I thought we were finishing up early today."

"Well, yeah, but going to the Winter's Eve Ball isn't anywhere near as fun as this," she admitted. "I'd rather stay here and practice, but Mom will kill me if I show up at the usual time. I won't have enough time to get ready."

"Well, you more or less have planar shields mastered," he declared casually. "And this is a good place to stop. You'll be starting on arc shields tomorrow."

"Are they harder?"

"They're not harder to cast, but the fact that they're curved means there's some math involved in how you form them," he warned. "Once I'm sure you have a grasp on spatial geometry when used in magic, I'll teach you the spell."

"How do we do that?"

"You'll be casting a light spell based on the shield matrix," he replied. "Creating curved sheets of light instead of balls. When you show me you can build a mathematically correct arc of light, then I'll teach you how to do with with a shield matrix."

"Why does that matter? It being mathematically correct?"

"Because if it's not, the shield is very weak and easily broken," he replied simply.

"Okay, I get it," she nodded. "Sooo, Hearth's Warming is in three weeks," she began casually.

"No," he answered, which made her laugh.

"Well, I tried, so Mom and Dad can't be mad at me," she grinned. "But I am getting you a gift. So no grousing."

He looked down at her with a penetrating stare, which made her laugh again.

After she left, he didn't really have anything to do, and he couldn't go outside, because that would disrupt his routine...and right now, keeping to that routine was the most important thing. Summer Dawn leaving early was a bit outside of the routine, but given that tonight was some important social party, her leaving early had a very valid explanation.

But that left him...alone.

He felt almost stupid. He knew that this was the way it had to be. He knew that his life would be one of solitude, because if ponies found out who and what he was, it could very well put his life in danger. They wouldn't understand. They would only believe the old folk tales about were-ponies, about Lykans, and what he was would forever blind them to who he was. He started pacing the apartment, which for him was a much more expansive practice than regular ponies, given he considered the walls and ceiling just as common a thoroughfare as ponies considered the floor, a very poor attempt to duplicate the head-clearing serenity he felt when he was flying. He did his best thinking when he was flying, when the stars illuminated the ground below in a blanket of soft, milky radiance and the moon showed him its true beauty. The clear night air on his face, the wind under his wings, the myriad smells drifting up from the ground below, carried on the night thermals, there was nothing that calmed his mind and organized his thoughts better.

And pacing was a pitiful imitation of it.

It was that cursed Tracker, that was the problem. If he wasn't out there, Starjumper could go outside, take a walk, do something, and he had to resist the urge to go hunt him down and remove him permanently, something that Starjumper could easily do...and something that the thestral in Starjumper would be capable of doing. He was no soft-hearted earth pony or squeamish unicorn. He was a thestral, and thestrals, like pegasi, weren't afraid to get violent.

He slowed to a stop at the very apex of the curved ceiling over the bedroom and blew out his breath, mastering his more murderous intentions. Taking Tracker out of the equation would just alert North Star, make him think something really sinister was going on, and it would just replace Tracker with a new investigator that Starjumper didn't know. Killing him and making him disappear was a short term solution that would lead to long term problems, and he was mad at himself for even considering it.

Not that he cared about killing a pony, but that he was being so short-sighted that he was ignoring the long-term problems the action would create. His parents had taught him better than that.

Starjumper Astra was no squeamish unicorn. He had been taught from an early age that who he was and what he was may require him to kill in order to protect himself, and he had learned that lesson well.

He didn't even understand why this was making him so pecky. He spent most of his time in the apartment anyway, usually perfectly content to sit at the writing desk and study or do the work required of both school and the Princess. Why didn't he want to do it now?

Because he would be doing it alone.

Luna's grace, this was ridiculous! This was what he'd prepared for throughout his youth! Being alone! And now, just over a moon after leaving home, he was already feeling isolated?

It was nuts. Just nuts.

He walked down to the floor and forced himself to sit at the writing table, then took a deep, cleansing breath and mastered his jumbled thoughts. He had work to do. He had a report due to the Princess by Monday, and he had a report to do for Professor Frostmane on a subject Summer Dawn's class studied last year, The interaction between magic and physics, about how when magical laws superseded physical laws, and when physical laws superseded magical laws. Knowing which laws applied to a spell's effect was a critical part of an accomplished magician's skillset. It was going to be an easy report for him to write, because his father had taught him all about that a good three years before they taught it in school.

He took another deep, cleansing breath, mastering his unease. He had work to do. There was always solace in work. It occupied the mind and was a productive use of his time. He just had to have patience. He would wait Tracker out. He would regain his freedom after the thestrals came and went.

Patience.

Things should not be this complicated.

With a bit of an annoyed sigh, Starjumper "lowered" his head down between his hooves, a move that was actually moving it up given he was laying on the ceiling over the main room of the apartment. Below him, Summer Dawn was trying to cast an arc shield, having just learned the spell matrix and now trying to apply what she'd learned. He wasn't paying much attention to her when he should be, for it was usually his guidance that helped her correct the mistakes in her staging and learn how to cast the spells more quickly.

Simply put...he didn't know what to do about Summer Dawn.

He couldn’t deny it anymore. He liked her. Not romantically, but he liked her. He liked talking to her, he liked being with her. She was smart. She was funny. She was earnest. She was considerate and kind, and she was curious and enthusiastic. She was, quite simply, a delight to be around, and now he understood why she seemed to have so many friends in a town where most often, most friends were only friends for what they could get out of the relationship. She felt like a friend to him, too, a real friend, the first real friend he’d ever had outside of his family. She had accepted all the conditions he placed on her with grace and compassion, and she had never strayed from those boundaries in the entire moon that he’d been teaching her magic. When he made her leave the apartment, she never asked why and she never complained. Well, not complained complained, she did have her own little ways to make her displeasure known. When they talked, she never pressed him for more than he was willing to tell her, and more and more over the last couple of weeks, she'd been getting him to talk, getting past his stony silence and getting him to open up a little bit. And while she did often ask him to go to this restaurant or that shop with her, or asked him to any number of social events in Canterlot trying to coax him out of his apartment and go out and have a little fun, she never got mad when he constantly turned her down…and she also didn’t stop trying.

And that was the problem.

If she wasn’t so darn adorable, he could easily continue to keep her at foreleg’s length and keep things strictly business. But it was beyond that now, and a part of him felt, felt wrong for being evasive, even deceitful with her over things.

He liked her. He wanted to call her a friend. But for a pony like him, the term friend had some massive implications that went far beyond what it did for just about anypony else. For him, a friend was a pony he could literally trust with his life. A pony that would stand by him despite what he was, would see beyond it, the way his family did. A friend in his life would have power over him, terrible power, literally the power of life and death. And he wasn't about to give that kind of power to any pony he could not trust with it.

The question remained. Could he trust Summer Dawn? If he told her his secret, would she keep that secret? That was the question.

She had both pros and cons when it came to that dilemma. She already kept some of his secrets, so she may be able to keep a few more. She didn’t talk much about him to her friends, and had kept the secret of the real objective of her tutoring with him. She knew that he could teleport, and while he'd never confirmed it, she kept it secret as well. She'd proved that she was worth his trust when it came to those secrets.

And those were the cons against her. She was a society pony, and if there was one thing he’d learned about the society ponies in Baltimare, it was that the bigger the secret, the faster they made sure as many ponies as possible knew it. She seemed quite content to keep his small secrets, but how was she going to react when she found out the truth? Would she keep that secret, a secret so big that it would change everything she thought about him, that it would alter the foundation of their relationship? Or would the temptation simply be too much for her? Or what he felt was worse, would she decide that it was completely harmless to maybe just tell her best friend, because it was her best friend? And then things would snowball from there until everypony knew about him?

And then there was the very real possibility that she might recoil when she found out what he was, that she would run from him and be afraid of him. And that would hurt him more than anything else she could possibly do, even over exposing his secret to the entire city of Canterlot.

It was childish fear against an even more childish desire to have a friend.

He’d thought about it all day, to the point of distraction, and still hadn’t made a decision. And he knew that when it came to this, he’d darn well better make the right one. If he made the wrong choice, it not only could, it would ruin his life. He’d have to flee to the most remote corner of Equestria and spend the rest of his life all but hiding from the rest of the world. Or, if she reacted with horror at his secret, he would withdraw from everypony and never try to reach out to another in friendship again. After all, if somepony who knew him as well as she did was afraid of him, there was no hope that any pony in Equestria would accept him for what he was.

So, to say that this was an important decision was a massive understatement.

There were other considerations here, as well. Summer Dawn seemed quite content to try to worm her way into his life in other ways, like wanting to meet his family, and that was where things were going to get convoluted. The coming visit from the thestrals was going to make things very murky, and she was the one pony that was going to be in a position to see a whole lot more about what was going on than just about any pony not in the palace. She was going to find out that the thestrals hated him, absolutely hated him, and there was nothing in the world they wanted more than to see him dead. That was going to make her ask questions, start investigating, and that could be a problem. He'd learned that when that mare got a bee in her bonnet about something, she devoted the entirety of that amazingly perceptive mind to finding out the truth. It was going to be very, very hard to keep the truth from her, not without all but breaking off all contact with her for the next moon and then picking up her lessons again after the new year, which he did not want to do.

The idea of not having Summer Dawn come to tutoring, of him being alone every afternoon, it unsettled him far more than he wanted to admit to himself.

He was looking at the simple fact that it might make things easier to just tell her the truth, if he could find it in himself to place that kind of dire trust in her.

And again...it came down to trust.

For the entire tutoring session, he stayed up there and watched her with hooded eyes, asking himself that simple question over and over, but finding no answer. Could he trust Summer Dawn? Could he give her the darkest secret he possessed and trust that it wouldn't get him killed? Or would he discover too late that Summer Dawn was far more like North Star than she seemed, that he had made a terrible mistake in misjudging her?

As the clock blared out its three gongs, he looked down at her as she looked over at it, with a bit of irritation, then sighed and dutifully started collecting up her things. And he asked himself that question one more time.

Could he trust Summer Dawn? Could he trust that mare with his very life? Was it worth that risk just to have a friend?

She looked up at him as he considered that most dreadful question. "Star," she called. "The clock."

The clock. That damned clock. It had ruled his life since the day his father made it, a constant reminder that he would never have a normal life, that he would never be a part of the society that protected him from those that would end his life over their own irrational fear. He hated that clock. He hated it with every fiber of his being. But he also depended on it like no pony in Equestria depended on any object. That clock gave him what little life he did have, even as it constantly reminded him that it would never be enough. It would never be what he wanted.

It would never be whole.

He didn't even realize what he was doing until it was too late. His horn flared in a bright surge of golden energy, and he disappeared from the ceiling in a circular burst of his magic. He reappeared directly in front of her, with his flank to her. She recoiled a bit with wide eyes at his sudden reappearance, then gave a sudden bright laugh. "I knew it! I knew it!" she said in delight, but her elated expression faded as she looked at his stoic, almost stony expression. "Star?"

"I want you to take a short walk," he told her in a low voice, devoid of emotion, and he picked up the clock with his magic and floated it over and put it in her bag. "While you walk, I want you to ask yourself this question, Summer Dawn," he said, turning and walking away from her. "Can I keep a secret? Can I keep a secret that could get a pony killed if it gets out? Can I live with that kind of a responsibility on my shoulders, knowing what could happen if I fail?"

She gave him a surprised look.

"The clock will ring two more times, Summer Dawn. It will give five bells in fifteen minutes, and then it will give seven bells ten minutes after that. If you ask yourself that question and then believe that you can keep that kind of a secret, that you can accept that responsibility, then you will return to the apartment before the clock rings seven bells. But if you can't, if you don't think you can, or you don't want that kind of responsibility placed on your shoulders, then you set the clock on the porch outside my door and go home, and we will never speak of this again. We'll meet tomorrow in the library as if this conversation never happened. Do you understand?" he asked, turning his head and looking back at her.

"I...I understand," she said seriously. "But I don't have to leave this apartment, Star. If this secret involves you, then you already know my answer."

"I may know your answer. But you don't know your answer," he answered evenly. "This is serous, Summer. This is the most serious question you will ever be asked. So I want you to give it serious thought."

She gave him a long look, then nodded and walked past him, towards the door. "Then I'll go for a walk. And unless something changes, I'll be back in about twenty minutes."

He watched her walk out the door, and he closed it behind her. He then turned away from the door, sat down, and bowed his head, wondering what in the blue blazes of Tarterus he had just done.

Almost with predictable precision, his door opened just as the clock gave its final warning, ringing seven bells, and Summer Dawn returned to the apartment. He turned his head and looked at her, and saw that her expression was very serious, but also very determined. She lifted the clock out of her saddlebag with her magic and returned it to its place on the shelf, then she took off her saddlebag, set it on the peg by the door, and then stepped over to her cushion and sat down without saying a word.

He gave a sigh. "Then so be it," he intoned, standing up. His horn glowed with soft golden energy, and he locked the front door, then closed the curtains over the balcony window. He walked past her, towards the stairs leading up to the bedroom, and didn't say anything for a long moment. He was wasting a little time, unsure of how he could explain it. But he was certain she'd understand it when she saw it. "Understand, Summer, that I'm the only one of my kind," he began. "My brother and sisters aren't like me. They were born normal."

"Normal? What do you mean?"

"You're about to find out," he said as he turned towards her, positioning himself so he was framed by the large west windows, putting the setting sun behind him. "Don't scream," he warned as the last slivers of the setting sun disappeared behind the horizon.

She gave him a perplexed look, but it was too late for her ask why he'd say something that ridiculous.

Seconds later, he knew the moon was being raised, because he felt it, felt the moonlight go straight through him and into his soul. Summer Dawn gave a loud gasp and stood up, then backed up a couple of paces in surprise when Starjumper’s horn flared with energy and then disintegrated, turning to fine ash and drifting down to the floor. She very nearly did scream when the wings grew out from his back with magical speed, the flesh and bone growing out in a matter of seconds as blood oozed down his sides, to the sound of cracking bone and the sight of muscle and flesh growing over the exposed bone and sinew, and then skin and dark blue fur shrouded that gruesome sight and the membranes filled out from the tops of the arches of his wing spars, visible to her because he had to keep them spread out wide to give them room to do so. He raised his head and looked at her as his ears changed shape slightly, grew a little, and the tufts grew on the tips, completing his transformation into a thestral.

It was over in seconds. He blew out his breath as the last of the pain subsided, then calmly folded back his wings and looked at her. “This is why you leave when that clock rings, Summer Dawn,” he told the stunned mare. “This is why I do what I do that makes no sense to you. In the sunlight, I’m a unicorn. In the moonlight, I am a thestral.”

She gave him a long look, then she blinked. “That…is…amazing!” she said in a sudden eruption, almost rushing up to him. “Oh my gosh, that is so cool! Can you fly? Why are your wings so much bigger than a pegasus’ wings? Whoa, your cutie mark is even different! It’s like you’re an entirely different pony! Can you still do unicorn magic like this? Can you do more thestral stuff than just walking on walls as a unicorn?”

He was honestly shocked at how, how accepting she was. She was curious instead of afraid. She wasn’t afraid! And Luna, was that ever a huge relief! He had to give a wry laugh and look down at her. “And here I thought you’d be afraid of me.”

“I’ve known you for over a moon, Star!” she told him. “Even if you look different, it’s still you! And why would I ever be afraid of you?”

That made him feel almost immediately better, like he’d made the right choice.

“But seriously, though, why are you so afraid of this? Why do you hide it, Star?”

“I have a very good reason,” he told her. “And to understand that reason, you have to understand exactly who and what I am, and what it means.” She immediately returned to her cushion and sat down, her expression eager and expectant, and that made him laugh. “Then so be it,” he said, sitting down in front of her, which required him to open his wings else the tips of them would press up against the floor. “I may be the only one of my kind, but I’m not the first. The thestrals have a name for me, for my condition. According to them, I’m Cursed, and their name for me translates to Cursed One in Ponish. Ponies call us Lykans, the sound of the word when spoken in Thestralla, the native language of the thestrals. Ponies like me come about when a thestral has foals with a non-thestral. The vast majority of them are normal, like my brother and sisters, but then there are the Cursed,” he said with dark amusement. “And they hate me, Summer Dawn. If I were to ever go to the Nightlands, I would be killed on sight. The only reason I’m still alive is because we live in Equestria, and I am under Princess Celestia’s protection. When I was born, the thestrals found out about me, and came for me,” he told her. “They came to kill me, Summer Dawn, but Princess Celestia intervened personally. She forced a treaty with the Night King that made him promise to leave me alone, in exchange for the solemn promise that I would never leave Equestria, that I would never cross the eastern sea and even be on the same continent as the Nightlands. And if I ever break that promise, if I ever so much as set one hoof outside the borders of Equestria, it might start a war between the thestrals and Equestria.

“Why they hate me so much is based on an old legend,” he continued. “Legend says that all thestral magic comes from an ancient relic known as the Night Stone. The legend says that they were originally earth ponies, but when they found the Night Stone, it changed them into thestrals, it gave them wings, gave them the magic that makes them what they are. And where I come into this legend, Summer Dawn, is that the legend also says that if a Cursed One ever touches the Night Stone, it will shatter, and the thestrals will lose their wings and their magic and become earth ponies once again.”

She gave him a surprised look.

“Whether this old legend is true or not is a moot point, because they believe it,” he told her. “They see me as a threat to the thestral race, Summer Dawn. Is it a surprise that they would be willing to go to the lengths of killing a newborn foal to protect everything they are, everything they know?”

“I…when you say it like that, I guess not. But it’s still wrong.”

“Of course it is, from our point of view. From their point of view, they’re preventing a catastrophe, and the life of one foal doesn’t outweigh the survival of an entire race. Most of their laws revolve around preventing Lykans from ever being born. Thestrals are not allowed to marry non-thestrals. Thestrals aren’t allowed to move out of the Nightlands, and if they do, if they break that law, they are banished, never allowed to return. The thestrals here that serve Princess Starlight are only here based on an ancient agreement between Princess Luna and the thestrals, and the thestral guards here shut themselves away from the other ponies of Equestria to protect themselves from the potential that they fall in love with an Equestrian pony. Visitors that come to the Nightlands have to go through a lot of red tape to gain permission, and while they’re there, they’re watched. And if they even show a hint of being friendly with the thestrals, they’re kicked out of the kingdom. They wouldn’t even let any ponies in if not for the fact that the Nightlands has to trade for what they need to survive, so they depend on those foreign merchants for basic necessities. They can’t grow a lot of food there, Summer Dawn, because it’s a kingdom of high mountains with little soil, and where there is soil, they can’t grow enough food to feed the entire population. So, the thestrals have to trade for food, and that means they have to let outsiders in. They mostly trade with the griffons and the hippogryphs, who live in the southern range of the Misty Mountains where the Nightlands is. Griffons and hippogryphs aren’t ponies, and that means there’s no chance a Lykan can be born. But the griffons and hippogryphs can’t trade them everything they need, so they have to let ponies in.

“And that’s how I came to be. My father was trading with the thestrals, trading them food for their tapestries. My mother met him on his journey, fell in love with him, and left the Nightlands to be with him. And here I am.”

She looked absolutely rapt, her mouth slightly open and her eyes locked on him.

“The ponies of Equestria may not know of that old legend and believe it, but they have their own legends about ponies like me that make sure I keep myself a secret,” he said blandly.

“Lykans…were-ponies!” she blurted.

He gave her a nod. “And I’ll tell you now that those stories are just wild, made up fairy tales,” he told her. “I can’t change ponies into were-ponies by biting them. I don’t drink blood, I don’t go berserk during a full moon, and I don’t burst into flames in the light of the sun. The very fact that I’m still alive proves that last point,” he said dryly. “I’m the same pony now I was ten minutes ago, I just look different. The reason I keep this secret is to prevent a mob of superstitious ponies from trying to drive me out of town because they have no idea who I really am. All they know, and all they care to know, is that their legends say I am a monster. They won't care if that legend is wrong, just as much as the thestrals don't care whether or not if I can shatter the Night Stone. They know what they want to know, and they don't care to know more.” He gave her a penetrating stare. "So now you know the truth, Summer Dawn. And undestand that my life is now in your hooves. If you tell anypony about this, it could get me killed. And if the thestrals know that you know the truth, it could get you killed. So, for both our sakes, you must be silent. There's an old saying, Summer, the secret unspoken remains a secret. Now it's time to prove to both me and yourself that you can keep a secret."

"I've kept your secret up to now, I can go on keeping it," she said with calm dignity, being very serious.

"Knowing I can teleport is nowhere near this."

"When your mother came to see you and I met her, I heard her voice through the door as I was leaving. I heard her say that the Night King lost his throne, and because of that, you were in danger," she told him. "I didn't say anything because I didn't want you to think I overheard it on purpose. And now that you've told me the truth, now I understand what she meant. But I knew then, Star, that you had a really big secret. And I kept it, because you are my friend."

"You have no idea how relieved I am to hear that," he said simply. "And there's something else you need to know."

"What is that?"

"I'm being watched," he replied. "I actually took a very big risk bringing you here, because Nova's father hired a private investigator to find a reason to get me expelled from school, and he's been watching the apartment for the last two weeks. You being here after dark is a disruption of my usual routine, and no doubt he's very curious about why you're in here now."

"He did what?" she gasped.

"It seems that Nova's father was far madder about what happened than Nova," he said dryly. "I realized i was being followed last week, then I tailed my tail after I could follow him without being seen." He opened his wings and fluttered them ostentatiously. "I tailed him to Nova's house and overheard him and North Star talking. North Star hired him to find something damaging about me that will make the school expel me. And I think this might be what North Star would be looking for," he added dryly, fully opening his wings. "Now that you know that, you might be able to help me get North Star to back off."

"Oh, I can help you with that," she said, almost seethingly.

"Quietly," he added in a strong voice. "This is going to require a light touch, Summer. We have to thwart North Star without reinforcing his belief that I'm the sinister presence he believes me to be. A pony like that is a zealot, Summer, a zealot that is convinced that he is right and anypony that tells him different is stupid, blind, or actively working against him, and zealots only dig in when ponies tell them that they're wrong. The best way to go about this is to simply give him nothing to see, until he gives up on his own." He glanced towards the front door. "That's what I've been doing with the pony watching me, and I've learned that he's almost ready to go to North Star and tell him that there's just nothing there for him to find. I'm sure us breaking our routine is going to pique his curiosity and make him dig for a few extra days, but we can simply wait him out.

"The bigger concern, at least to me, is the fact that the thestrals are coming," he grunted. "I'll be locked in this apartment days before they get here and won't be allowed out until at least a day after they leave, and you need to know, because it'll affect your lessons. I'm still going to tutor you while I'm locked in here, but I won't be allowed to go to school, or even leave the apartment. While they're here, I'll be in very real danger. Remember, Summer, they want to kill me, and here they'll be literally within sight of me."

"That's why your family's coming," she realized.

"To be in the Royal Palace and under the protection of the EUP and the Princesses while the thestrals are here," he nodded. "It's entirely possible that they'll attack my parents, since they blame them for me being alive in the first place. And their track record against my family shows that they'll be as petty as they can possibly be to punish my entire family for my mother's sins," he growled. "When my mother left the Nightlands and married my father, the Night King retaliated by stripping the family she left behind of all their money and property. He went after my mother's brother and sister, which is a coward's reaction," he spat. "My aunt and uncle had been well off, prominent members of thestral society, from an old and established family. And they lost it all because of my mother...because of me. The Night King took everything from them when they committed no crime, did nothing wrong, and he did it out of pure spite."

She gave him a startled look.

"Do you understand now what my family is facing? What I'm facing? They're not going to show anyone in my family the slightest bit of mercy, Summer. They want me dead, and what's worse, they want to hurt anypony that has even the most remote connection to me and to the fact that I even exist. And that is why you are at risk. If they find out that we're friends, they'll try to use you to get to me, and do not think for a second that they would hesitate to kill you if it somehow furthers their plans to get to me. That's why, when you walk out of this apartment tonight, you act like nothing has changed. I am your tutor, you are my student. You hired me to do a job for you, and that's all I am to you. I'm your employee. And I'm sure that a society unicorn like you will be very good at treating somepony like me with all the arrogance and condescension I expect out of Canterlot unicorns," he said dryly.

Her eyes flashed, but then she gave a sudden laugh. "I'm not very good at being stuck up," she warned with a small smile.

"It's the only reason I tolerate you," he said blandly, which made her grin.

“I can keep a secret, Star. But I do want to know one thing. Why tell me? Why show me?”

“I…I’m really not sure,” he replied honestly. “I guess it’s because I’m tired of being alone. My whole life I’ve had to keep this secret, and it’s made my life a very isolated one. When I was a foal, I could never do things other foals did, or play with them very much, because when I was a foal I had a problem keeping the secret. And now that I’m older, I can’t get close to other ponies, because they may figure things out, figure out I have a deep, dark secret, and that will either push them away or try to learn the truth of it. I can’t be friends with anypony with this hanging over me,” he said, opening his wings fully. “You’re the first pony that has ever just accepted my secrecy and didn’t either let it push you away or try to find out the truth, which would push me away. You’re the only real friend I’ve ever had outside of my family, Summer Dawn, and friends don’t lie to each other.”

She gave him a compassionate, reassuring look. “I like you too, Star,” she told him with a smile. “And I haven’t been this happy since before I started school. Thanks to you, I don’t dread going to school now. I don’t feel stupid and inadequate. And you’re teaching me real magic, more magic than I ever learned in school, and you've shown me what I want to do when I finish school, what I want to be. I want to be a magician like you. I want to learn everything there is to know about magic. You’ve completely turned my life around, you've given me purpose and direction, and now I’m not terrified I’m going to fail school and let my parents down. And that’s all thanks to you. So I’m darn sure gonna keep your secret, as thanks for everything you’ve done for me, even if I didn’t like you,” she said with a playful smile.

“And that makes me feel like I didn’t just make the worst mistake of my life,” he said honestly, standing up. “I need to clean the blood off my sides."

"That happens every time?"

He nodded as he turned around.

"Does it hurt?"

"A little, but I'm used to it," he replied easily as he moved towards the kitchen area. He tended to his sides, and Summer Dawn helped out by cleaning up the ash on the floor, placing it in the ash bin when he pointed to it. He then came back to her and sat down. "This is your only chance to ask those questions I can see in your eyes, Summer," he warned with a slight smile. "I may never be this talkative again. Don't waste it."

She laughed. “So, you can fly like that?”

“Of course I can,” he said, slowly flapping his wings. “They’re not just decorations.”

“Why are your wings so big?”

“You saw my mother, Summer. All thestrals in my family have oversized wings, including my sister Songbird. It’s a family trait,” he said mildly.

“Can you do unicorn magic like this?”

He shook his head. “No horn, no magic,” he answered.

“And you’ll change back in the morning, right? What happens to your wings? Do they ungrow like they grew in?”

“They turn to ash, like how my horn did,” he answered her. “That’s the worst part of it, truth be told. It doesn’t hurt very much when my horn burns off, but it does hurt when my wings do it.”

“They burn off?”

He nodded. “They don’t burst into flames or anything dramatic like that. They just turn to ash and crumble to dust, like my horn did. But it doesn’t happen so fast that I don’t feel it.”

She gave him a compassionate look. “And you’ve had that happen to you every day since you were born?”

“I’m used to it,” he shrugged.

She got up, and Starjumper stayed seated while she slowly walked around him, inspecting him. And he allowed it…after all, she was a naturally curious pony. “Why does your cutie mark change?”

“That I don’t know for sure, but I have a theory. My special talent as a unicorn is based on unicorn magic, and since I can’t do unicorn magic like this, I think my cutie mark changes to reflect that fact.”

“So what is your special talent, hmm?” she asked playfully.

“Guess,” he said simply.

She was quiet a moment. "Teleportation!" she blurted.

"Correct," he said with a nod. "That's why I'm here. My special talent is based on a spell that takes a lot of magical power to use, so it makes me look like I'm more powerful than I really am."

“Huh.” He felt her hoof slide along the membrane of his wing, and he opened it wider. “What would happen if you broke your wing? Would it grow back the next day whole, or still be broken?”

“That’s a pretty observant question,” he said approvingly. “The answer is, they grow back in the same state they were in when they burned away. So yes, it would grow back broken. Because of that, it takes my wings twice as long to heal as the rest of me, since they’re only here half the time. That’s why my father taught me how to make something that accelerates the natural healing process. It can’t mend a broken bone in minutes, but it lets me heal almost anything that happens to them in a few days instead of a few weeks, or even moons.”

“How can you use it if you can’t do magic when they’re out?”

“Because it’s not unicorn magic, it’s potion making, and anypony can learn that,” he answered.

“That’s pretty awesome. You could make it and sell it,” she told him.

“No. You have no idea how much time and effort it takes to make it,” he said dryly. “I keep one vial of it on hoof if it's needed, then make more if I use that vial. I only make it when I have to.”

“Oh. Well, it was an idea,” she said, tapping the hooked thumb claw at the juncture of the wingbones on top of his wing with her hoof. “What’s it like?”

“I can’t really explain it to you,” he answered. “When I’m like this, I’m literally an entirely different pony, but still the same me. I have wings, my senses are different, and I lose access to my unicorn magic. All I have is my thestral magic.”

“Thestral magic. What can it do?”

“You've already seen most of it, because I don't lose most of it it when I'm a unicorn. That makes me more thestral than unicorn,” he answered. “You’ve seen my spider magic, when I’m sitting on the ceiling and whatnot. That’s thestral magic, not a unicorn spell. Thestrals can walk on clouds like pegasus ponies as well, but they can’t affect the weather. That’s unique to pegasi. Griffons and hippogryphs are the same way. They can walk on clouds too, but they can’t change or affect the weather. But I can walk on clouds as a unicorn. Because of that, I have a theory that thestral spider magic and the basic magic of most winged sentient life to walk on clouds might be somehow related. The thestral magic I gain, that I don't have all the time, is the magic that allows me to fly. Thestrals are like pegasi that way, our wings are actually too small to get us off the ground if we didn't have flying magic. Well, most other thestrals. I think my wings might be big enough to let me get off the ground without having flying magic, but I wouldn't be very graceful in the air. I'd be gliding more than anything else. Someday I'm going to test that theory and see if I'm right or not. And that's it. That's thestral magic.”

“Huh,” she sounded, coming around to his head again, and she couldn’t resist touching his tufted ear with her hoof. “You said you have different senses.”

He nodded. “I have much sharper senses as a thestral, Summer. I can see in the dark, hear much better than I can as a unicorn, hear sounds that I can’t usually hear as a unicorn like the way dogs can hear a dog whistle but we can’t, and I can smell everything around me, including being able to identify things by scent, like a hound. I can also see colors that I can’t as a unicorn.”

“What kind of colors?”

“I can’t explain it. Since you can’t see them, there’s no way I can describe it in a way that would make sense to you. It would be like you trying to describe the color purple to a pony who’s been blind since birth. There’s just no way to do it.”

“That’s really cool,” she said, leaning in and looking inside his ear. “And I’m surprised you’re being so honest.”

“I don’t want you to be afraid of me, Summer. So I’m telling you what you want to know so you won’t be afraid of what you don’t know.”

“I’m not afraid of you, goof,” she told him dismissively. “I don’t see why anypony would be afraid of you like this. I think this is awesome. I mean, you change into an entirely different pony at night! It’s like you have two completely different lives. I don’t understand why you keep it a secret.”

“Because of ponies that believe those old mare’s tales about Lykans,” he replied immediately. “I’d rather not be run out town by a bunch of ignorant ponies carrying torches and pitchforks, Summer. So I just keep what I am to myself. It doesn’t affect other ponies, I’m no threat or bother to them, and I just want to be left alone to live my own life without ponies either being afraid of me or never leaving me alone because they’re not.” He sighed. “Besides, I keep this secret because of the thestrals. They’re afraid of my curse, and anypony they think is close to me becomes a target. So to protect other ponies from them, I keep to myself.”

“This is not a curse. This is way too cool to be a curse,” she scoffed.

“That’s not how they see things,” he said dryly. “So, now you know, Summer Dawn. And now you have a secret to keep,” he told her calmly, but his voice almost vibrated with emotion.

"You can depend on me, Star," she told him reassuringly, reaching over and putting her hoof under his chin the way her mother had done to her. "You've done so much for me, I'd keep it just out of respect for that. But I'm going to keep your secrets because you are my friend, and friends are always there for each other."

He looked up at her, trying his best to not let any emotion show in his expression. "Thank you, Summer," he said simply. "You've been the only ray of sunshine since I came to Canterlot."

She beamed at him a bit. "So why did you come to Canterlot? Just to study magic?"

"More or less. The Princess wanted to study my condition, she does know about it, but she brought me here to see if I could learn other high order magic. She told me that even if teleportation is my special talent, it takes so much magic to use that I might be able to learn other highly advanced spells."

"That sounds logical to me. And given how good you are with magic, Star, I doubt there's any magic you can't do," she said with a smile.

"Flattery isn't getting you out of your practice," he told her dryly, which made her laugh. "And you do need to go, Summer. Every moment you stay here just makes that investigator more and more curious."

"You tell me all this, now you're throwing me out?"

"The art of keeping a secret is pretending it doesn't exist, Summer," he told her seriously. "So, yes, I'm throwing you out. Go home, and don't forget to practice your planar shield spells tonight. That will help you when you come back tomorrow to work on arc shields. Hopefully you can manage to cast it so you can practice your arc spells over the weekend."

She gave him a long look, then nodded soberly. "I understand. And tomorrow, we don't say another word. The secret unspoken remains a secret, even if you're speaking about it to somepony that already knows it."

"Exactly," he said with an approving nod. "I'm glad you do understand. So," he said, standing up and folding back his wings. "I'll see you in the library in the morning."

"I'll be there," she said with a smile, floating her saddlebags over and placing them on her back. "But there is one thing I have to say before I leave."

She dared lean over and kiss him playfully on the cheek, then she gave him a smile and turned for the door. He backed up quickly so he wouldn't be visible from any angle from the open doorway, and she unlocked opened it, went through, and closed it behind her.

He spent a very long moment staring at the closed door, considering just what he had done, and how impulsive it had been to do it. He just put his life at risk, put her life at risk, and he'd done it without really thinking about it, without completely thinking it through. There was no turning back from that decision now, it had been made and could not be unmade, and he could only hope that he had done the right thing.

But he did have hope. She hadn't been afraid of him. She hadn't screamed and ran out the door. She was more curious than anything else, and that made him feel relieved in ways he hadn't even considered. The fear that she would be afraid of him and run, never have anything more to do with him even if she didn't tell anypony about him, that had been his greatest fear. To be rejected like that, to bare his soul to another pony and have them be afraid of what he was showing them, that would have just destroyed him.

Destroyed him.

He felt hopeful. Summer Dawn had accepted his truth, and what was more, it didn't dissuade her. He...he did feel that he could trust her. He felt comfortable with his life being in her hooves. If anything, what he'd learned moments ago told him that she would keep his secrets, and also told him that she understood the great responsibility that she now carried on her back. She had the power of life and death over him, and had proved, at least so far, that she knew just how titanic that responsibility could be.

And the best part? He now had a friend here in Canterlot, who would understand why he lived such a secretive and regimented life, that he didn't have to exclude from seeing those parts of it he had to hide behind his walls. He had a friend here that could understand him, understand who he was and how it shaped his life. And that was going to make his time here feel much less burdensome.

He felt...content. He felt...optimistic. He felt like the walls of the apartment weren't closing in on him anymore, that he wasn't locked in a prison cell. He felt like he could get through the next couple of weeks without going crazy, and he felt like things were starting to look better in his future.

He felt like the clock, that hated, cursed clock, had lost one of its grips on running his life.

He felt hopeful.

Moonblade

This last week had shown her just how special Starjumper really was.

Floating along in the brisk cold of the early winter morning, she looked down and saw him walking towards campus with his breakfast, a donut and a cup of coffee, heading for the class. They’d been in class for the last week, back for required lecture and more or less just waiting for the chance to test out. Ponies were starting to joke that they could set their clocks by Starjumper’s movements, that he had become so predictable that Donut Joe had his order and cup of coffee on the counter before he even walked in the door.

A week. She’d known his secret for a week, and it was that week that opened her eyes not only about who he really was, but how well he hid it from the rest of the world. She knew he was smart from the tutoring, she knew he was skilled, even gifted, as a magician, but hadn’t appreciated just how impressive that stallion really was until she could see the true motivations behind the things he did.

For a week now, she had come to tutoring knowing his secret, knowing who and what he was and what he could really do, and he had not said a word about it. Just like when he stonewalled her about being able to teleport, he pretended that his secret didn’t exist, he never mentioned it, never even hinted or alluded to it, and that made her understand just how disciplined he was. He wouldn’t even make mention of it to a pony that already knew. It was like…like he convinced himself that he was just another unicorn stallion, and that self-delusion held right up until the moment that he couldn’t possibly deny it, that moment he changed into a thestral. It was a great example for her to follow when it came to keeping a secret, to not only not ever talk about it, but not even think about it unless she had a true need to do so.

The secret did not exist, right up until the instant that it needed to exist to come in line with the real world.

But, things had changed between them, she could tell. He was still terse, still abrupt, still not all that talkative, but he didn’t seem quite so aloof now. When he looked at her, there wasn’t that guarded hood behind his eyes. He seemed much more comfortable with her now, and there was no doubt why. He didn’t have to lie to her. He didn’t have to keep his distance from her. He didn’t have to pretend with her, even though he did to maintain the illusion, his grand masquerade that he was just another unicorn. She knew, and even if she said not a word about it, he knew that with her, he didn’t have to pretend. She knew his truth, and she was still there.

He really was something else. All the burdens on him, all the responsibilities, and he managed to carry them without a single word of complaint. He was a hunted pony, reviled and despised by an entire race, and yet he walked with calm distraction, as if that fact didn’t exist. She had respected him before she learned his secret, but now she admired him. He had managed to carve out a life for himself despite the crushing weight pushing down on him, managed to not only maintain his dignity, but also his compassion, even though he had to be hard and maybe a little merciless, because his life may someday depend on him being able to fight against ponies that wanted to kill him.

The biggest example of that was what she remembered of his story about who he was. He could see things from the side of the thestrals, understand and even empathize with their irrational fear, even though they wanted to kill him. It said a whole lot about who he was deep inside, that he could understand them, even if he was opposed to them, almost like he didn’t see them as his mortal enemies, more like misguided children who didn’t understand that what they were doing was wrong. He didn’t hate the thestrals, even though they hated him. And while he may have to fight them someday, he didn’t hate them.

To be able to take that kind of moral position, it showed just how strong he was. He was a pony that stood in the face of almost overwhelming adversity since the day he was born, and he still had the strength of character to pity those who called him enemy.

Well, there was one thestral he did hate. She could tell that his animosity towards the deposed Night King was entirely personal, because of what he did to Starjumper’s aunt and uncle.

The thestrals. They were supposed to be here next week, and from what Starjumper told her, he would be restricted to his apartment in just three days, and Princess Twilight had cast a spell over the tower that wouldn’t allow the thestrals to get in. That would keep him safe, but only so long as he stayed inside the apartment. They were restricting him five days before the thestrals were scheduled to arrive just in case they came early, and he couldn’t come out until the day after they left. He’d be stuck inside the apartment for ten days, and he’d told her that the Princess had a plan of some kind to explain why, to keep ponies from thinking about why he wasn’t in class. He was supposed to break school rules, on purpose, and the Headmistress was going to suspend him for two weeks and the Princess was going to restrict him to his apartment as further punishment.

She descended and landed beside him, the aura of magic fading from around her, fidgeting a bit with her scarf. She was wearing a winter saddle, snow boots, and a scarf against the winter cold, where Starjumper wore nothing, and yet seemed entirely comfortable in the biting cold without a coat. Then again, she’d learned, he never let anything look like it bothered him, it was part of the stoicism that was quickly becoming almost a legend in Canterlot. To many, Starjumper was the kind of pony that could stroll through a raging forest fire as if it were the Promenade. There was a kind of temperance about him that ponies noticed, like the discomforts of the world were for other ponies to endure, not him. The cold that had other ponies walking with greater urgency to their destination was of no moment to Starjumper Astra. But that temperance wasn’t serenity. The calm about him was a pregnant one, a charged one, as many who had been the victim of one of his malevolent stares could attest. His stoicism wasn’t the quiet calm of a pony who had not a care in the world, but the tight control of a pony that kept his negative emotions in check. Nopony could look into Starjumper’s bat pony eyes and not be a little intimidated by the subtle hostility that lurked within them. At least no pony except her. She knew why that hostility was there, knew that it was there not because he hated other ponies, but because he wanted to protect them from the danger he posed, and it did not frighten her. To the contrary, she admired it because it showed his true compassion.

Their breath misted in the biting morning air, and snow crunched under their hooves and boots. The pegasus ponies had held off on the first snow of the season for a few days after bringing the winter cold, which was a bit unusual, so the snow was pristine and unpacked. “Morning,” she offered, glancing over at him.

“Morning,” he returned without looking at her, taking another sip of his coffee, steam wafting up over the cup. “Did you practice last night, or waste your time at another party?”

“Both, thank you very much,” she replied primly, almost putting her nose up as she looked towards him. “I’m pretty sure I have spherical shields down. What’s next?”

“Angular, but those aren’t very hard,” he answered. “Once you learn the trick of joining the sides together, it’s really just creating two different planar shields. Given how fast you’ve gone through this, we may be done with shields by Friday. And your graduation will be assured.”

“Pft, like I care about school now,” she said dismissively.

“Said like a pony that knows she’s going to pass,” he said evenly.

“Well sure, but I learn way more from you than I do them,” she scoffed. “And don’t think you’re going to stop tutoring me after I learn shields. I want to know everything you know, Star. And I’ll keep paying until I do.”

“You’d better,” he countered, which made her grin at him. She glanced to the side, where Nova was standing with three of his friends, the four of them all in coats and talking in a loose circle.

“I do have something to pass along,” she said. “Nova’s not grounded anymore. He was at the party last night, and I think he’s doing his dad’s bidding.”

“How so?”

“He’s been saying some pretty nasty things about you,” she replied. “And I mean it goes way beyond just the normal party gossip. He was telling ponies last night that you’re a criminal. Like a real criminal, that you were in jail in Baltimare.”

“I guess North Star wasn’t dissuaded by his investigator’s final report,” Starjumper noted dryly. “This must be Plan B.”

“You said he wouldn’t be. You were right, it must have just made him even more convinced he’s right.”

“The mind of a zealot is easy to understand,” he said calmly. “So, speaking as a Canterlot snob, what’s his angle here?” he asked, looking down at her.

She stuck her tongue out at him, which made him smile ever-so-slightly. “He’s trying to poison the school against you. If he can get enough students’ parents complaining about you to the Headmistress, she’ll have no choice but to do something about you.”

“Death by a thousand cuts,” he grunted.

“So, were you in jail in Baltimare?” she asked playfully.

“Yes,” he replied evenly. “The investigator must have dug that up.”

She gave him a surprised look. “What happened?”

He glanced around, to make sure nopony was close enough to hear, then lowered his head down to speak in a low tone. “About a year ago, I got into a…confrontation with an obnoxious stallion from Manehattan. He was in our shop, being a complete jackwagon, you know, complaining about how low-brow our merchandise was and whatnot. When my brother told him to leave the shop, he got belligerent and deliberately broke some glassware. Well, I put a stop to that, then threw him out of the shop. Literally. He came back an hour later with the city constable and claimed that I beat him up. I had to go to the constable’s office, explained what happened, and he decided I was justified and let me go. Then he threw the Manehattan pony in jail overnight for breaking those mugs and not paying for them,” he chuckled darkly. “I was technically arrested when the constable came to the shop, and I spent about ten minutes in a holding cell after I gave my statement. So yes, I was in jail…for ten minutes.”

“Well, I can’t blame you for that,” she declared. “And I’m glad things got sorted out quickly. That might have gotten…complicated.”

He looked down at her with an even stare, then nodded calmly.

“Now that I know what’s going on, I can throw a bit of a wrench into North Star’s scheme,” she said confidently. “In fact, I can turn this back on him quite nicely, since you were wrongly accused.”

“I think you’re a little too sure of yourself. Besides, like I told you before, I don’t really care what Canterlot ponies think of me.”

“This isn’t to make you popular, Star, this is to keep the Headmistress from throwing you out of school,” she replied brusquely. “This scheme could work, especially if there’s nopony pushing back against his rumors. I don’t think you appreciate the power a well placed rumor can have. It’s ruined ponies with much better reputations than yours.”

“I don’t have a reputation.”

“Everypony in Canterlot has a reputation,” she told him, glancing up at him. “You don’t want to know what yours is like.”

He gave a snort, which made her giggle. “Luna’s moon, you Canterlot ponies are ridiculous,” he complained. “Ponies getting ruined over a rumor. I have never in my life seen so many ponies who spend all their time standing around talking about everything, yet doing nothing.”

“Hey now, you’re getting a little personal here, Star,” she said primly. “You’re getting dangerously close to insulting my friends. I am a society pony, you know.”

“Truth is only an insult to those without the character to face it,” he stated bluntly.

“I believe we’d better move this discussion to another topic,” she said, a bit frostily.

“I can agree to that. Ruminating over the silliness of Canterlot society ponies will no doubt ruin my breakfast.”

She raised a foreleg and elbowed him in the side. She was not gentle.

He wheezed a bit, then looked down at her with a slight smile. “Point proven.”

“Oh, drink your coffee!” she snapped shortly.

Celestia’s grace, Starjumper sure hadn’t acted any differently with her since telling her the truth. He could still drive her crazy sometimes.

When class started, so did the interminable boredom. There was nothing that Frostmane was lecturing about concerning transfiguration spells that she didn’t already know, didn’t learn from Starjumper. She and him were ready to test out at the first opportunity, for that matter, she’d mastered all the required applications of the spell and was ready to earn more than enough bonus points to not even have to take the written test. She couldn’t really pass the time the way he did by reading, so she ended up just sitting at her desk and daydreaming through the morning…daydreaming about being able to cast the spell. Seeing Starjumper do it, that one time and one time only, had lit a fire under her to learn it herself. It had just been this nebulous goal until she saw it, saw exactly what it was he was teaching her to do, and now she was more determined than ever to cast that spell.

And she could admit, a bit of petty revenge was part of it. The best part of her daydream fantasies was casting that spell in her finals and seeing the looks on the faces of her teachers and schoolmates who had always laughed at her behind their hooves because she was such a poor student. There was no sweeter revenge in her mind than to stuff those tittering giggles right down their throats when she cast a spell that none of them ever believed her capable of using, a spell that they would never be able to cast themselves.

Yes, it was a bit immature and petty, but she was allowed a few unladylike thoughts once in a while.

When the lunch bell rang, she walked with him outside, but as usual, she didn’t plan to eat lunch with him. She spent that time with Crystal Bell and her friends, and her learning the truth wasn’t going to change that routine. She gave him a nod of farewell and trotted over to Crystal Bell and Berry Cream, falling in beside them. “So, how about the Corner Café today?” she offered.

“We went there yesterday. Let’s go to the Millstone,” Berry Cream countered.

“Ooh, that sounds good. I could go for a banana muffin,” Crystal Bell agreed.

“Then it sounds like I’ve been outvoted,” Summer Dawn admitted, which made her friends laugh.

They went to the bakery that was right across from Starjumper’s apartment and sat at the table by the window, enjoying some muffins and good coffee. “I’m not sure I’m ready for the test on Friday,” Crystal Bell frowned. “These transfiguration spells just have me stumped. I don’t get them at all.”

“I hear you, Crystal,” Berry Cream agreed. “I haven’t been able to change my stick into anything yet, except an even angrier stick.”

Summer Dawn had to laugh at that analogy. “It’s not as hard as it seems, girls,” she said, taking a nearly lecturing tone. “The important part isn’t the spell, the important part is the image you have in your mind of what you want the spell to do. If that’s not right, the spell will fail even if you do cast it properly. Here,” she said, looking down at the napkin holder. Her horn blazed with pink magic, and it transformed into a salt shaker in a flash of magic, an exact duplicate of the one already there. “See, it’s not that hard. If I can do it, I’m positive you girls can do it. You’re just as good at magic as me. Maybe even better.”

“Wow, I didn’t know you learned it already, Summer!” Crystal Bell blurted.

“I learned it last week,” she admitted modestly. “Star walked me through it, through all the required variants too. I’m hoping I test out on Friday.”

“Maybe you can teach me what Starjumper taught you,” Crystal Bell said hopefully, looking at the new salt shaker on the table.

“Well, have you learned the spell?”

“I think so,” she replied. “Lemme try.”

“Not on the napkin holder, you can’t cast another spell on an item already under the effect of the spell,” she warned. She turned her head and opened her saddlebag with her magic, then set an empty ink pot on the table. “Now, look at the salt shaker, Crystal. See everything there is about it. Its size. Its shape. How many holes are in the top. What the design around the sides is like. The color of the design. The more detail you put into the image you build in your mind, the easier the spell is to cast. Got it?”

“Yeah, I do,” she said seriously, looking at the salt shaker.

“Okay, cast the spell.” She watched as Crystal Bell’s horn flared with soft blue light, and she could sense the flow of magic. “Stop! Wait!” she called. “That’s wrong,” she warned.

“How did you know that?” she asked.

“Star taught me how to sense magic so I can tell how a spell is being cast,” she said absently. “It’s how he makes sure I’m casting the spells right.”

“Oohhh, can you teach me that?” Crystal asked quickly.

“I think so,” she replied. “It’s not that hard, you just have to pay attention to what the magic is doing. Star said that he doesn’t understand why all unicorns don’t do it, because it’s an integral part of who we are. Anyway, you weren’t forming your spell right. I, um, hold on. He didn’t exactly teach me how to do this, but I think I can do it.” She bit her tongue a little bit as she built a spell with her magic, then she gave a smile when glowing lines of magical energy appeared over their heads. “Yes!” she exclaimed. “I remembered it!”

“What is that?”

“It’s a visual representation of a spell you’re about to cast,” she replied. “This is how he teaches me, by letting me see the spell as a visible matrix of magical energy, rather than reading an incantation formula written on a page where the words form the thought that translates into the magic. I’m really bad at trying to learn spells by incantation, but I can pick them up when I can see them like this. He says this is the way I learn, and I guess he’s right, because I remember spells when he does it this way. When I learn how to do the spell, I don’t need this image anymore. Okay, so this is a basic transfiguration spell,” she said, then she staged the spell within the image over their heads, and the magical lines of force swirled into being. She then turned her head a little bit, then created a second one. “This is what you did, Crystal. See how they’re different?”

“I…I do,” she said, looking up at the two staged spells. “So, I’m not doing the incantation right.”

“I suppose. There’s a word in there you’re thinking differently than the spell expects. But if you look at this way,” she said, pointing up at the lights over them. “Just reshape this area right here to match this. And boom, the spell’s correct.”

“I’ve never done it that way before,” Crystal Bell said speculatively.

“I think that’s why I do so well studying under Star,” Summer Dawn mused. “The way he teaches me magic is so different from how they teach us in school. I never read a book when he teaches me. I sit down and I’m either casting spells or watching him cast the spell he’s teaching me the minute I get there, and I’m doing it til the moment I leave. And everything he teaches me is always like this,” she said, waving her hoof upwards again. “It’s never words on a page. It’s magic in action, where I can see the magic and see how it moves, how it flows, how it behaves. Learning spells by incantation may work for other unicorns, but it doesn’t work for me.”

“Can you teach me how to do it this way?” Crystal Bell asked, looking up.

“I suppose so, but do you really want to learn from the worst student in class?” she asked, which made both of them laugh.

“No way anypony thinks that anymore, Summer,” Berry Cream told her. “Not after you knocked everypony’s horn off when you tested out of the freezing spell.”

“Yeah, Nova’s like ultra-mad at you now,” Crystal Bell added. “He never expected you to be upstaging him in class when it comes to magic.”

“He can keep on being mad, because I don’t care what he thinks one way or the other,” she said firmly. “I’m not trying to impress him. I’m just trying to get Frostmane to let me test out so I can study the magic I want to learn, not what she’s teaching us.”

“I’d settle for getting this spell right,” Crystal Bell fretted.

“I tell you what. Why don’t you two come over to my house after sunset tonight? I’ll try to teach you what Star taught me, but I’ll warn you now that I may not be very good at it. It’s kinda hard for me to explain what he’s taught me in words, when so much of what we do is about things like this.” She pointed up at the visual spells over their heads.

“Right now I’ll even take help from you, Summer,” Crystal Bell said with a playful tone, which made Summer Dawn laugh.

“So, did you get the shield spell to work?” Berry Cream asked curiously.

With a big smile, she dismissed the staged spells over their heads, then her horn blazed with pink magic. A shield formed around the table, a few currents of darker pink magic shimmering across the surface as it stabilized. “Amazing!” Berry Cream gushed, reaching over and putting her hoof on the spherical shield. She’d built it as a solid shield, so it prevented her hoof from going through. “I can’t believe you learned a spell like this! Teach me, Summer!”

“Teach me too!” Crystal Bell added excitedly.

“It’s not that easy,” she laughed in reply. “There’s a lot you have to learn before you can do this spell.”

“Well, teach us that too!” Crystal Bell declared.

“I guess I can. Let’s see, my going rate will be thirty gems a week,” she said playfully, which made both of them snap their gazes towards her. “One hour a day maximum, five days a week. And I charge extra if you ask me questions outside of tutor time.”

They both gave her surprised looks, and when she began to laugh they did too. “You had me going there a minute, Summer!” Crystal Bell said in relief.

“But seriously, girls, I don’t think you’ll learn in time to use it on the final for bonus points, given I won’t have all that much time with my own studies. But if you don’t mind that, I guess I can teach it to you.”

“I don’t care about the finals, I just think this is super-cool, and I wanna learn how to do it,” Berry Cream declared, tapping the shield again.

“Wait, you should have more time. Didn’t you hire Starjumper to teach you shield spells? Well, you can cast it now,” Crystal Bell realized.

“He knows other spells, and I’ve hired him to teach me every spell he knows, teach me everything he knows about magic, as well as teach me the spells in the curriculum,” she answered. “Since he’s way better at teaching me than the teachers are, I’m gonna keep him as a tutor so he can teach me through the rest of the school year. I’m gonna need his help, because when I graduate, girls, I’m going to be a full time magician. I want to know everything there is to know about magic, so I’ve decided to dedicate myself to it. So, Star’s teaching me everything he can so I have a good foundation when I start studying on my own.”

“That’s so cool, Summer!” Crystal Bell told her. “I thought about trying that, but I don’t think I have what it takes. I’ll just take the safe path and get a job in the palace or something.”

“I’ll never be good enough at magic to make a living off of it,” Berry Cream laughed ruefully as Summer Dawn dismissed her shield, which made Berry Cream’s hoof lunge forward when what it was pushing against disappeared. “But one thing’s for certain, Summer. You don’t have to worry about passing your finals now!”

“I know, and you have no idea how giddy that makes me,” she grinned in agreement. “This time last year, I didn’t know if I’d even still be in school by now. I was afraid they’d kick me out for bad grades or something. And now I want to devote my life to learning everything there is to know about magic, to be as good as the pony who taught me.”

“Is he really that good?” Crystal Bell asked.

“Star? He knows more about magic than Professor Frostmane,” she answered honestly. “He sees things in the magic, things I’ve never even considered could be there. I’ve never seen anything like it before. When he casts spells, girls, he’s not building a spell so much as he’s creating a work of art, and the magic responds to him in a way I’ve never seen it respond to anypony else. He can take the most difficult spell you can imagine, and he casts it with such effortless grace that you’d think it was the simplest thing in the world. I hope someday to be half the magician he is,” she declared strongly.

“Wow,” Crystal Bell breathed.

“I’m honestly not sure why they even put him in school. He’s far beyond anything they teach in school,” she proclaimed. “But I’m not complaining too much. If they wouldn’t have put him in school, I’d never have met him, and I’d never have realized what I want to do with my life.”

“Ooooh, so we’re getting to the center of this muffin,” Crystal Bell said with animation. “That was the sound of a mare who’s going to miss a stallion when he leaves.”

“Of course I am, he’s a great teacher,” she countered. Crystal Bell gave her a steady look, and she almost gasped and rose up in her seat. “Crystal Bell!” she accused.

“Come on, he’s cute, don’t deny it,” she said winsomely. “All that time you two spend alone together, I’d almost be upset if he didn’t look at me once if I were you.”

“I—You—Oh, hush, you!” she said, her cheeks burning. That made the other two mares laugh. “He’s my teacher! And if you knew him, you’d know exactly how ridiculous that statement really is!”

“And why is that? Does he not like mares or something?”

She gave her a flat look. “He already has a marefriend, Crystal. It’s called magic,” she replied tartly. “He’s completely devoted to studying magic. I don’t think he’s even noticed I’m a girl yet.”

“So, you have considered a few things,” Crystal Bell grinned impishly.

To her intense pique, she blushed furiously. “Well, I guess somepony’s not going to learn how to cast a shield spell after all,” she replied tartly, which made both of them explode into laughter.

They left the bakery and started back for class, Summer Dawn walking maybe a little too quickly to be entirely innocent of Crystal Bell’s accusation. Of course she’d considered Starjumper that way. He was cute, even with his eyes and fangs, and she knew him better than any mare in Canterlot, so she knew that he was a gifted, intelligent, compassionate stallion who had more strength and conviction than half of Canterlot society put together. But, she also knew that because of what he was, he would even think of going on a date with anypony, not even her. He wouldn’t expose a mare to that kind of danger…not from him, but because of what might happen to any mare that got close to him. The threat that the thestrals would use his marefriend against him kept him alone, because he would not put another pony in danger because of him. He cared too much.

It was almost prophetic that she would be thinking of the thestrals. She saw several other students running across campus, all of them seeming to converge on the green outside the main academic building. The three of them were going in that direction anyway, so they headed in that direction as well. They reached the edge of a crowd, and unable to see, Summer Dawn used levitation on herself, lifting up and over them to see what had everypony so excited.

She nearly felt her heart leap out of her chest when she saw what was drawing the crowd.

Starjumper was standing out on the campus, not far from the steps up to the door to the academic building, and he had placed a shield around himself. Standing around it were thirteen figures, all of them wearing black armor. And when she looked at them closer, she almost screamed in fear.

They were thestrals.

The thestrals were early! They were over a week early! And they had caught Starjumper out in the open! He was low on his front hooves, his eyes narrow and a snarl on his face as he turned his head to watch the armored thestrals that had him surrounded. They weren’t trying to come through his shield, so they were just holding him there.

They didn’t know, and in that moment, she understood why Starjumper kept what he could do a secret. If they knew he could just teleport away, they wouldn’t be toying with him now. They would attack him, and it would put every unicorn watching on in danger. And he wasn’t going to reveal what he could do unless he had no choice, because once he showed them his tricks, their surprise value was gone. She quickly approached them from over the others, getting close enough to hear. One of them, a mare, she was speaking, but she was speaking a language Summer Dawn had never heard before.

As the mare spoke, her voice taunting and malicious, one of the thestrals behind Starjumper moved, looked about to try to come through the shield. She saw that while he was wearing armor, he also had armor over the leading edges of his wings that extended out over the tips of them as sharpened blades.

Weapons.

It was everything she could do not to attack that thestral to protect her friend, but she knew it was not a good idea. They didn’t know that he was her friend, and if she tried to intervene, she’d be revealing that…and that would make her a target. Besides, Starjumper was inside his shield, and he was such a good magician, they’d never get through it. He had everything under control, and if things got out of his control, he could escape them with a single spell.

Thank Celestia, somepony intervened before she had to make that choice! In a circular burst of purple magic, Princess Twilight appeared between Starjumper and the mare that was talking, her wings spread out and a furious look on her face from what Summer Dawn could see. “Stand down, Moonblade!” she shouted, her horn absolutely blazing with magic. A split second later, Princess Starlight appeared in a burst of blue magic behind the thestral mare, and her horn too was almost afire with magic, so much magic that Summer Dawn could sense it from where she was.

They weren’t kidding! They were going to blast that thestral with everything they had!

“Princess Twilight Sparkle, it’s a pleasure to meet you,” the mare said in an oily voice, dripping with scornful mockery.

“You stand on Equestrian soil, Moonblade, and are subject to Equestrian law while you do! You will stand down now, or I will send you back to your mother in a small box!” the Princess threatened. And to prove it, the magic around her horn coalesced into a shimmering globe of immense magical power.

The thestral mare gave her a measured, narrow-eyed look, then turned her head enough to look at Princess Starlight from the corner of her eye, who was directly behind her and had her charged horn leveled on her. She then looked over to the other thestrals, six stallions and six mares, and gave a nearly imperceptible nod. The other twelve took a must less aggressive stance, all of them taking a few steps back. But they didn’t move from their circle around Starjumper, keeping him fully surrounded. And Starjumper certainly didn’t miss that either, because the shield around him didn’t come down. “I told you to stand down, Moonblade!” Princess Twilight said hotly. “That means you tell your guards to withdraw! You will order all of them to report to the Royal Palace’s main gate immediately!”

She gave the Princess a cold look, then folded back her bladed wings and said just two words in that strange language. The other twelve then took off from the ground and flew the short distance to the palace.

“Starlight, could you make sure they stay there, please?” the Princess asked. Princess Starlight didn’t answer, she simply disappeared in a circular burst of blue magic. The Princess took a less aggressive posture and folded back her wings as well, but she stayed firmly between the thestral and Starjumper. The thestral said something in that other language in a harsh voice, clearly addressing him.

In response, Starjumper stood fully erect and dismissed his shield. “Here I am, jaikla. Are you thestral enough to take a shot at me without your guards to hide behind?”

She gave him a savage look, her bladed wings snapping out. Princess Twilight stepped to the side to get completely between them, breaking the thestral’s line of sight with Starjumper.

“Starjumper!” the Princess barked, glancing back at him. “You are not helping!”

“Why don’t you come out from behind your mommy and we’ll see who’s standing when it’s over!” the thestral mare nearly spat in reply.

“Both of you, SHUT UP!” Princess Twilight screamed. “Headmistress Roseglass, teleport Starjumper to a secure location. And you, Moonblade, we are going to have a very long talk in the throne room. Now!” she snapped, opening her wings and lifting up off the ground, hovering over the thestral’s head. “Follow me!”

The thestral mare glared unholy death at Starjumper as she opened her wings. “Magra va,” she intoned savagely.

“Dosai va doe,” he answered, obviously speaking Thestralla. Before the thestral could respond, the Headmistress stepped up to Starjumper, and they both vanished in a circular burst of ruby magic, robbing the thestral of seeing in which direction Starjumper went. That was a very smart thing for the Princess to order, Summer Dawn realized.

But still, that whole scene was not good. Now everypony was going to do nothing but talk about it for the next week, and all they’d talk about was how the thestrals tried to attack Starjumper. That would make ponies wonder what was going on, and they might find out the truth. And it would just add on to the rumors Nova was spreading about Starjumper. She wouldn’t be surprised if there weren’t parents in the Headmistress’ office by the end of the school day, demanding to know if their foals were safe with Starjumper on campus and the thestrals in Canterlot.

She landed beside Crystal Bell and Berry Cream, and her two friends looked both perplexed and a little, well, excited, like it was some grand performance. They had no idea just how real that was, and how it almost turned into a war! “What was that all about?” Berry Cream asked.

“That was—“ Summer Dawn started, then cut herself off and shook her head. “That was for real. I could feel the magic, the Princesses were going to blow that thestral up if she didn’t back off.”

“Why were the thestrals surrounding him like that?” Crystal Bell asked her.

“That’s a good question,” she deflected. “I need to talk to Star.”

“The Headmistress took him somewhere.”

“But I know where he’s gonna be,” she said firmly as the afternoon first bell rang, bringing her back to reality. She was in class, she couldn’t just run off to Starjumper’s apartment. That’s where she knew he would be staying while the thestrals were here, so that was where Roseglass was going to take him.

That afternoon was torture. All she could do was look at the clock and wait for it to move, and every minute turned into an eternity as Frostmane droned on and on about transfiguration. She found herself unable to sit still, fidgeting constantly, as if moving around would somehow jar the clock and make it speed back up to normal, and she paid absolutely no attention to the lesson or to Frostmane.

This, Frostmane did not fail to notice, and she paid for it. Summer Dawn was almost startled out of her wits when a heavy book slammed onto the desk in front of her, and she was still keyed up over what happened to Starjumper. She reacted with magic, her horn blazing with pink energy as she almost instinctively, unconsciously took the desk and chairs around her into account. A spherical shield formed around her, nearly startling Crystal Bell out of her seat beside her, the shield anchored to the floor, desk, and tier wall behind her, completely enclosing her in a protective shell.

Frostmane raised one of her white eyebrows as the rest of the class gawked a little bit. “Miss Summer Dawn, you will pay attention,” Frostmane ordered.

“I—I’m sorry, Professor,” she replied, feeling completely stupid, the aura of pink magic around her horn fading, which caused the shield to shimmer and vanish.

“A question,” her teacher said, coming out from around her desk and walking towards the tiers. “Was that directional?”

“No ma’am,” she replied. “Solid magical spherical.”

“Anchored?”

“Yes ma’am. I’m still working on making a free-floating shield that’s intersecting a solid object, I haven’t quite learned the trick of it yet. It’s easier just to anchor it.”

“Reproduce it.”

“Uh, yes ma’am,” she said, her horn again limning over with pink magic. A second later, the shield returned around her. She gave a bit of a startled sound when Frostmane lowered her head, her horn blazing with silver magic, and a bolt of pure magical power raged across the space between them and struck the shield. The entire class jumped a bit at the sudden spell, then there were a few gasps. She’d used a mana bolt spell! She’d attacked the shield to try to bring it down!

“Well built,” she said, her voice a tiny bit impressed, then she returned to the blackboard

Finally, mercifully, the bell rang, and Summer Dawn was out of the room before the other students even so much as packed up their books. She broke school rules by galloping down the hallway before the other students could fill it. She managed to get out of the building before the hallway filled up, and she forced herself to slow down and walk calmly towards Starjumper’s apartment. She knew she wasn’t supposed to come to his door without him inviting her, but darn it all, this was an extenuating circumstance. She came up the steps and knocked on the door carefully, almost cringing when it made too much noise, and the door opened almost immediately. She stepped inside and saw him sitting at the writing table downstairs, his horn glowing with golden magic as the door closed behind her. “Thank Celestia!” she said in relief, hurrying over to him. “I was so worried! Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” he replied calmly.

“What happened, Star?”

“I wasn’t expecting them this early. Nopony was,” he grunted. “One of them pretended to try to take my head off while I was walking back to class after lunch. They surrounded me out on the campus, and I think you saw everything after that. I saw you rise up over the crowd.”

“That’s awful! Did you get hurt?”

“Of course not,” he replied calmly. “I saw him coming. It was nothing but a trick, anyway.”

“How can trying to kill you be nothing but a trick?” she asked, a bit strongly.

“How he did it,” he replied. “He missed on purpose. You saw them, right? Did you see the black gems mounted into the chestplates of their armor?”

“Yeah.”

“Those are spell dampeners,” he told her. “They cancel magic that touches them. He took the shot at me to make me think that I can hold them back with magic. So, when they try again, I’ll make a mistake that may get me killed,” he said evenly. “So keep that in mind, Summer. Magic doesn’t work on them directly. You have to be creative to use magic against them.”

“So, I couldn’t grab one with levitation and hold them in place,” she said, to which he nodded. “But, I could pick something up and throw it at them.”

“Exactly,” he nodded as he stood up and faced her. “Those spell dampeners behave the same way a magical shield does, Summer. The same rules.”

“Ohhh, I get it,” she said, nodding. “Okay, now that you answered that question,” she said, then she reached over and gave him a quick but fierce hug. “I was so worried! I almost ditched afternoon class to come make sure you were okay!”

“Well, I’m glad you feel better,” he said, a bit awkwardly, patting her on the back. “But as you may expect, I’m stuck in here until they leave.”

“Roseglass teleported you here?”

He nodded. “So the thestrals have no idea where I am. Nor does anypony else, really, except you.”

“And I’ll keep it that way,” she promised.

“You need to. As in, you need to leave, and everyone needs to see you leave. And you won’t come back to the tower until the thestrals leave,” he told her. “The Princess doesn’t want anypony to see anypony coming and going from the tower while the thestrals are here.”

“But, but my lessons!” she blurted, then blushed and felt stupid almost immediately.

He gave her an amused look. “You’re not getting out of your lessons that easy,” he told her, turning his head. His horn limned over with golden magic, and a mirror lifted up from his writing desk and floated over to her. “Take this home with you and set it in your room, and make sure you set it so the face of the mirror faces the room. I know a spell that will let me see through a mirror from another mirror. I have to be able to see the room.”

“You’re going to—here?” she said in sudden excitement.

“Of course I am,” he chided with a slight smile. “I only need to know exactly where you are, and that’s what the mirror is for. When you hear a chime come from the mirror, Summer, stand in front of it in an open area, so I can see you and the room around you. I’ll take care of the rest.”

“From halfway across town?”

“You seem to have this preconception that you have to be right there to use the spell,” he told her. “I already know where you live, and the mirror will let me home in on you. So, I think I’d better explain how it works when you’re back over here.”

“Oooh, that sounds awesome!” she said in sudden enthusiasm, placing the small mirror in her saddlebag. “Give me about an hour, okay? I need to talk to my parents and make sure they don’t knock on my bedroom door while I’m gone. If they find out I’m not there, it may make them freak out a little bit.”

“One hour,” he nodded, looking over her and towards the door, which opened from his magic. “Remember, face the mirror towards the room. I’ll take care of the rest.”

“I will,” she nodded confidently. “I’ll see you in a little bit.”

He nodded without replying, then turned and sat back down at the writing desk.

She hustled out of the apartment and down the stairs, deciding that she shouldn’t attract attention to herself by floating from the porch like usual. She got all the way to the Promenade before she did so, rising up over the wide avenue and the buildings, then starting towards home by floating quickly, so fast that the wind in her face stung a little bit from the cold. She was so glad he was alright, it was such a relief! But, she could tell that he was rattled. She knew him better than he thought she did, she could tell that the experience had unsettled him just by the way he was talking to her. He usually didn’t talk like that, both from the tone of his voice and the way he was speaking. He was trying to be calm and confident for her benefit, because he didn’t want her to worry, but she knew he’d been shaken by getting caught out in the open like that.

That stallion was just too noble, trying to make her feel better just so she wouldn’t worry about him.

She landed at the rear of the house, at the kitchen entrance, then hurried inside. Withers was behind the counter starting on the preparations for dinner, and her mother was sitting at the kitchen table with a cup of tea and the Canterlot newspaper hovering in front of her by her magic. “Mom, what are you doing in here?” she asked as she closed the door. “Why aren’t you in the parlor?”

“I can’t sit at the table and enjoy a hot cup of tea, silly girl?” she countered.

“Given Dad’s not here…yes.”

She laughed. “Your father’s in town,” she replied. “And I don’t like to sit in the parlor by myself.”

“Well, glad you’re here, now I don’t have to hunt you down,” she said. “I need to talk to you about what happened today.”

“Oh, I heard all about it,” she said, putting the paper down, the aura of magic fading from her horn. “You know Starjumper, daughter, maybe you can explain what that was all about. It has everypony quite confused.”

“I…can’t really say, Mom. He made me promise to keep it secret,” she hedged.

“Then what do you need to talk about?”

“They have him in a hidden place while the thestrals are here,” she began. “But I’m still going to be taking my lessons with him after school. I’ll be doing them in my room, and he’s going to be using magic to talk to me.”

“Well, that’s fairly clever.”

“Yeah, I thought so too. But what I need is for you to promise that you won’t try to come into the room while I’m taking my lessons,” she said. “When I close the door, nopony knock on it.”

“That’s a strange request,” her mother noted, looking at her. “And why is that?”

“Because he doesn’t want to take any chance that somepony that walks into the room sees the magic he’s using and figures out where he is. He said the Princess will murder him if he reveals where they have him hidden, and he had to talk her into allowing him to use the spell to keep tutoring me. So, he’s taking no chances.”

“That sounds almost like a bad spy novel,” Fleur de Lis mused. “But I guess we can manage that, daughter. I’ll tell your father when he gets home.”

“Thanks Mom, you’re the best!” she said, advancing up and hugging her from her seat. “I’m gonna go up and get started, he’s waiting for me. I should be out around the usual time.”

“I’ll have dinner ready at sunset, Miss Summer,” Withers promised.

“Awesome! Thanks, Withers, you’re the best too!” she said, giving him a smile.

She rushed up to her room, then realized once she closed the door that she had a long wait before the hour was up. She expected it to take much longer to track down one of her parents and arrange things, because they were usually out of the house this time of day. They attended a lot of small social functions during the early afternoon. She set the mirror on her desk and made sure it faced the room, then ended up pacing around the room waiting impatiently for the mirror to chime. She didn’t even think to practice her shield spells in the time she was waiting, too anxious and eager to see Starjumper use his secret magic.

The mirror finally gave a loud chiming sound, and she quickly rushed over to stand in front of it. She then thought she was too close and backed up a few steps, then felt she was too far away and took a couple of steps forward. When nothing happened, she backed up again, and after nothing happened again, she took a single step forward, giving the mirror a quizzical look.

It startled her. There was no warning, no sense of magic. One second she was looking at the mirror, and the next second all she could see was golden magic all around her. She felt a strange sensation, like a hot wind blowing over her, and there was a definite sense of motion, but she wasn’t the one moving, it was everything else that was moving around her. It was like she was sitting in a carriage and seeing the city moving by the window, even though all she could see was the golden magic. But before she could move or react, the magic evaporated, and she found herself standing in Starjumper’s apartment, right beside her cushion. She gave a gasp of surprise, then laughed in delight as she looked around. “Oh my gosh, you really did do it!” she blurted.

“I would have done it earlier if you’d have stood still,” he chided. “I can’t do that if you’re moving.”

“You didn’t tell me where to stand, I kept thinking that you couldn’t see enough to find me,” she said in defense of herself. “But still, that is so cool! And I’m going to be able to do that?”

“Eventually,” he answered. “You have a lot to learn before you can pull that off.”

She hopped to the side, onto her cushion, and plopped herself down energetically, giving him an eager, expectant look.

He gave a laugh, a laugh that seemed much more normal for him, like he was starting to relax, to calm down. “You’re not ready for that lesson yet,” he told her. “But I’ll explain the basics before we start practicing.”

“Okay,” she said.

He took a couple of steps back, giving her room, then he sat down. “Teleportation,” he began, “is a simple spell to understand, but it’s a very hard spell to execute. At its core, it’s as simple as taking an object and moving it from one place to another. But it’s how you do it that’s tricky. When you teleport something, Summer, you don’t make it disappear and reappear somewhere else. What you’re actually doing is moving it completely out of our world, moving it through another one, and then bringing it back in the location you want it to.”

“Huh?”

“You just got over here, Summer. Was it instantaneous?”

She gave him a look, then her eyes widened when she realized what he was saying. “No. There was this split second where I was surrounded by magic, and I had this feeling that something was moving. But it wasn’t me. It was…it was like I was sitting in a carriage and watching the city go by in the window, but I couldn’t see anything because of the magic.”

“Precisely,” he nodded. “When you teleport something, Summer, you’re sending it to a place I call the otherspace, then you bring it back. In that other place, distances don’t mean the same thing they do in our world, so you can move something miles in a split second. It’s this other place that’s responsible for the resistance I told you about. It doesn’t like us taking things and sticking them inside it, so it resists your magic. But we’ll come back to that some other time, because you’re not ready for that yet. What you need to consider, Summer, is that it’s not a spell restricted to just you. You can teleport yourself, sure, but you can also teleport other objects, and it works both ways. You can teleport to another location, teleport an object from where you are to somewhere else, but you can also teleport an object from somewhere else to you. You just have to know exactly where it is. That’s the most important thing about teleportation no matter how you use it, Summer, you have to know exactly where something is, and where everything else is in relation to the object. And the more detailed your knowledge of the landing point of the spell, Summer, the easier it is to cast and the less chance you get burned in transit. That’s why I’ve had you practice paying attention, so you start learning what you need to know to use the spell safely. Understand so far?”

“Yes,” she replied. “You brought me here by teleporting in reverse.”

“More or less,” he nodded. “I just needed to know exactly where you were and be able to see the place in detail so I could grab hold of you. I’ve never been to your room before, so I needed to see it through the mirror.”

“So, you wouldn’t need the mirror to do it again if I was standing in the same place? I mean, you saw the room, so you know what it looks like.”

“Yes I will need the mirror, and I’ll explain why when I teach you the spell,” he corrected her. “So you’re going to be keeping the mirror for a while. Just turn it towards the wall or cover it with a cloth when I don’t need it, that way I’m not peeking in on you in your room.”

She gave him a look, then burst out laughing. “Well thank you for warning me about that,” she grinned.

“I thought it was only fair,” he drawled. “Now, teleportation involves three aspects of control to use properly, Summer. Remember what they are from the book?”

“Location, position, and motion,” she recited.

“Correct. You have to define all three of those aspects to use the spell without hurting yourself. And like I once told you, if you do it really wrong, this spell can kill you, Summer,” he warned. “So I can’t emphasize enough that you learn how this works before you have a near-death experience. Trust me, they’re not fun. At all.”

“I wouldn’t think they would be,” she agreed.

“Well, some ponies are just flat out crazy, so you never know,” he drawled, which made her laugh. “Location is the simplest of the three to understand, it’s where you reappear, and the one you have the most control over. It’s your landing spot, the place where you’re going to reappear, and the more detailed your ability to envision that place, the less energy it takes to get you there. Position is how you reappear. For example, when I brought you here, I didn’t change your position. You were standing in your room, and you reappeared here standing. But I could have made you reappear sitting down the way you are now, or made you reappear reared up on your back hooves, or laying down, or whatever I wanted. So long as your body is physically capable of assuming that position without injuring yourself, I could have made you reappear in any way you can reasonably imagine.”

She gave him a surprised look, then gave a sudden fierce blush and burst out in awkward laughter.

“Hey now, keep it clean, sassy mare,” he chided, which made her laugh harder. “It’s a lot harder to change another pony’s position without burning them, so you won’t be doing that until you have some experience with the spell. Motion is the hardest of the three to control, because you’re very limited in what you can do with it, and it’s the most dangerous of the three if you get it wrong,” he continued. “It’s how fast you’re going when you reappear. You can disappear standing and reappear walking, but you can’t reappear at a dead run. That goes beyond the capability of the spell, and you’ll all but give yourself third degree burns if you try. But, if you do that in reverse, if you disappear at a dead run, you can reappear standing still. Simply put, you can slow yourself down in transition far more than you can speed yourself up. Why, I have no idea, that’s just how it works. But even slowing yourself down has limits, so don’t ever try to fall from a great height, build up a lot of speed, then just think you can teleport to the ground and cancel out all that momentum. That’s a very fast way to get very dead.”

She gave him a slight blanch, then nodded vigorously.

“There are some tricks to getting around those limitations, and I’ll teach them to you. But they’re advanced tricks, so you have to learn the basics before you start pulling those off.”

“The falling thing,” Summer Dawn interrupted. “What if I was falling with my hooves towards the ground and reappeared with my hooves towards the sky, so I was falling up?”

“Well reasoned,” he said with an impressed look. “Yes, that’s one of the tricks you’re going to learn, how to change your orientation, which is an aspect of your position. Very observant question.”

She beamed brightly at him.

“What you can do with it depends on how creative you are,” he continued. “Like you just realized today, it’s not limited to just you teleporting yourself to another place. You can teleport other objects or even other ponies to another place, or bring them to you. For example, if you forgot something in your room, you could teleport it to you from all the way across town, then send it back when you’re done with it. But those are very advanced applications of the spell, and you’ll need a lot of practice with it before you can do things like that safely. Using the spell like that is extremely hard, it may take you years to learn how to do it. I wouldn’t ask anypony that could cast it to even try it. Not even Princess Twilight,” he told her.

“But you said I could do it.”

“Because I’m going to teach you,” he replied. “This spell is my special talent, Summer. Not to brag or anything, but I know this spell like no other spell, and other ponies don’t understand just what it can do the way I do. I’ve practiced with this spell for years, hours and hours a day, this spell and this spell alone, so I have much more experience with it than, say, Princess Twilight. This spell is a part of who I am, and it’s as natural to me as levitating a teacup is to you. And given how powerful you are, Summer, I know you have the potential to use the spell the same way I do. You just need me to teach you, somepony to show you how to look beyond the limitations that other ponies put on the spell because they don’t truly understand how it works. When I’m done, Summer, you’ll be able to do everything I can do with this spell. It may take you a few years to master the most advanced applications of the spell, like what I did to get you here, but if you’re diligent and you’re determined, you will be able to do it.”

“I’ll learn,” she assured him in a strong voice, giving a single nod.

“I’m sure you will. So, in a nutshell, Summer, that’s the basics of how the spell works. You have three aspects of the spell you must define with as much precision as possible, and you have to learn the most basic use of the spell, teleporting yourself to another place, before you learn how to branch out from there. And what’s the first rule of teleportation?”

“Mistakes hurt,” she recited.

“Mistakes hurt,” he nodded. “Now then, it’s back to boring shield spells,” he declared. “You still have to learn angular and irregular before you’re ready for teleportation.”

“You did that on purpose,” she fumed a bit. “Got me all excited about teleportation and then drop that on me.”

“If you don’t hate me, then I’m being a bad teacher,” he said dryly. She gave him a short glare, then laughed despite herself.

She had a reason to learn the last two versions of the spell now, so she buckled down and knocked his horn off by learning both of them in a matter of hours. Angular shields really weren’t hard, it was just creating two different planar shields and then joining them together at their edges…sort of. And irregular shields were just more than two planar shields that she joined together in succession. By the time the clock went off, she was fully comfortable with angular shields and was working on getting irregular shields down, mainly because it got kinda tricky once she built a shield with more than four faces.

“Not bad. You may have this down by tomorrow,” he said with an approving nod as he stood up. He’d spent the entire tutoring session sitting in front of her, and that was a bit unusual. Usually he did schoolwork or read a book and just kept a passive eye on her. She could tell that he was rattled from the close call, so maybe he just wanted to be near a friend, moral support, but he’d never admit it. Not because he was prideful or arrogant, but because he wouldn’t want her to worry.

He really was such a thoughtful and brave pony.

“I don’t have to leave at three bells,” she offered impulsively. “They’re not expecting me until sunset. I have a little more time.”

“You don’t need me to watch you,” he said dismissively. “Just practice your irregular shields on your own tonight, and you’ll be ready to put this one in the books by tomorrow.”

“I want you to tell me more about teleportation,” she lied a little. Really, she just wanted to stay because she didn’t want him to be alone. Being there for him was what being his friend was all about.

His only friend.

“Best not to tempt fate,” he said evenly, standing up. “Just be patient, Summer. Odds are, you’ll be starting on it in a couple of days. Maybe even tomorrow, if you can prove to me you have all the forms of a shield mastered.”

“Well, what about food? Do you have enough food to hold you over? Would you like some dinner from home?” she asked. “I can have Withers fix you a plate, and you can zap it over here, then zap the plate back when you’re done.”

He gave her a measured look. “I’m fine, Summer,” he told her in a warm, reassuring voice. “But I appreciate your concern.”

“Well…well, if you want to talk, just make the mirror chime. Now that you’re not hiding your trick, you can bring me over here to talk any time you want to, even if it’s the middle of the night. I know you don’t sleep much.”

“Stop being a nervous nellie, silly mare,” he chided. “If you want to try to comfort me, or whatever it is you’re doing, then be ready to start teleportation tomorrow. If anything, this is the perfect time to get you started on it, when I’m more or less a captive teacher,” he drawled.

“Well, I’m worried about you!” she flared a little. “You’re my friend, Star! I don’t want you to be over here feeling lonely, or scared!”

He gave her a gentle look, an expression she almost never saw on his face. And it made him look so…handsome. “Just keep your eyes open tomorrow,” he told her, backing up a couple of steps. “And remember, be silent. They don’t know who you are, and I want you to keep it that way.”

“I…I will,” she answered. “Just promise me that if you need to talk, you chime the mirror. Even if it’s the middle of the night.”

“And how will I do that after the moon rises?” he asked pointedly.

She spluttered a bit, then blew out her breath.

“Forgot already, did we?” he teased lightly. “Well done,” he added with a smile. “It proves you’re being serious about obeying the saying.”

“It will be unspoken,” was all she said, looking up at him with a smile.

“That’s my girl,” he told her with pride in his voice, his horn flaring with a bright surge of golden magic. “Listen for the chime around an hour after school lets out. And stand still next time, for Luna’s sake.”

“I will,” she promised with a giggle.

“Off you go,” he declared. A second later, there was nothing but golden magic around her and that hot wind blowing over her coat as she moved without moving, and then the magic winked out and she found herself back in her room, in the exact spot in which she’d been standing. She blinked and looked around, getting her bearings, then she blew out her breath. She didn’t want to leave him, but Starjumper was Starjumper. All she could really do was make sure she was ready for tomorrow, make sure he knew just how seriously she took his lessons, how important they were to her.

She glanced at the mirror over her vanity, holding a picture of her, Crystal Bell, Berry Cream, and Strider. It was from six years ago, in their first class in the academic building holding the upper classes, the first time they felt like grown-ups. That was about when her troubles in school started, she recalled, but it was still a good time. They were all happy, looking forward to learning more than just how to levitate balls and conjure globes of light, and they all had such hopes for the future. Like any unicorn that managed to get into their school, their heads were filled with dreams of being the next Starswirl the Bearded—just without the beard in the case of the fillies—and so looking forward to that first day of not feeling like foals.

Things had come full circle, she mused. She’d given up on her dreams of being a dedicated magician as her grades got worse and worse, as the lessons depended more and more on books she couldn’t understand, until it got to the point where she was just hoping and praying that she wouldn’t flunk out of school. But now…now…wow. Who would have thought that she’d be looking forward to graduating not just to get school over with, but so she could study the magic she wanted to learn on her own time, without being on somepony else’s schedule? Who would have thought that she, Summer Dawn, wouldn’t even be worried about final exams? With all the magic she could use now, her graduation was basically a guarantee. If Starjumper could teach her how to teleport before finals, she’d pass finals with one spell.

Celestia’s brilliant sun, how lucky was she that he crashed into her life out of nowhere? And it was all thanks to the fact that she wasn’t intimidated by his grumpy demeanor, had the courage to talk to him after he squared off against Nova. That started her down this path, where she knew what she wanted out of life and now was on the road that led to it. She was going to learn everything he could teach her, learn magic the way he knew it, and then build on that foundation when he went back to Baltimare and pursue her dream of being a dedicated professional unicorn magician. And she would do it her way, which would not involve her spending her life trying to read a book. She would learn by doing, she would learn as much as she could about magic and then learn how to use it by experimentation, not reading books. Yes, it was going to blow up in her face more than once, but she had the determination and the courage to just clean off the soot and try again.

All thanks to Starjumper.

It hit her. He was going to leave Canterlot. She knew he would, he was only here because the Princess was making him go to school. She…she didn’t like that idea. It wasn’t just because he was the best teacher ever, it was simply that she would miss him. He was grumpy and abrupt, but he was the smartest unicorn she’d ever known, he was thoughtful and compassionate, brave and noble, and he was the best teacher ever. He’d taken the hopeless cause and turned her into one of the best spellcasters in class, and he did it while doing so much of his own work.

Really, that stallion was just amazing. Totally amazing. She wanted to do something for him before he left, do something that would show him how much of an impact he’d had in her life, both as a teacher and as a friend, and how grateful she was for both his help and his friendship. But she really didn’t have a clue what to do.

Wait. There was something she could do for him, but it would take her getting some help herself.

She came downstairs and made her way through the lower floor to reach the parlor, and saw that her mother and father were there waiting for dinner. It was their favorite place in the house, a room filled with warm, bright furniture and decorations, a thick Saddle Arabian rug on the floor that all but massaged the hooves when one walked over it, and the dominating feature of the room, a giant fireplace with a marble mantle that had a cheerful fire burning within it. “Well, you’re back earlier than I expected, my dear girl,” her father said as she came in. Both him and her mother were reading, her father from a newspaper and her mother from a book. Her father was sitting in his favorite chair, and her mother was laying on a divan next to the fireplace, her favorite spot in the whole manor. “How was your tutoring session?”

“It went pretty well, Dad,” she replied, coming over to him. “Can I talk to you and Mom about something kinda serious for a minute?”

“Why certainly,” he replied, using his magic to close the paper and set it on the stand by his chair. Her mother closed her book and slid off the divan, coming over to stand by the chair as well.

“I…I think I’m gonna need your help,” she began. “Nova’s dad is trying to get Starjumper thrown out of school, and I don’t exactly know what to do to help Star put a stop to it.”

Fancy Pants’ expression turned serious, as did her mother’s. “You’re certain of this, Summer?”

She nodded. “He hired an investigator pony to follow Star around and dig into his past, looking for something he could take to the governors to have Star expelled. And he’s had Nova spread rumors about Star at parties and gatherings since his punishment ended, things Nova couldn’t possibly know unless North Star told him.”

“And you’re sure of this?”

“Yes,” she answered. “Star found out about it when he realized that the investigator pony was following him around. And I saw him too, Star pointed him out to me. He did follow Star around every time he came out of his apartment, for over a week. And he was always hanging around the bakery across from his apartment, watching it. They don’t know how good he is at magic, Dad, he was able to use his magic to find out what they were up to.”

“I wouldn’t put it past North Star,” her mother said darkly. “He was embarrassed by his son being suspended, and you know how far he’ll go to answer a slight. If he thinks Starjumper sullied his reputation, he would try to retaliate.”

“He did harp about the stallion a little too much for it to be idle gossip at the Three Colt’s Club,” Fancy Pants mused.

“I told Star I’d help him get North Star off his back…I’m just not quite sure what to do,” she said.

“I dare say that we’ll give you a hoof with that, my dear girl,” Fancy Pants replied. “I’ve never seen you do so well in school since you started your lessons with him, and by Celestia, North Star’s pettiness is jeopardizing your academic future. I won’t have that,” he declared firmly. “You leave this to us, Summer. I think it’s about high time that North Star realized that if he’s crossing your tutor, he’s crossing us.”

“Just do me a favor and do it quietly, Dad. Starjumper doesn’t want a giant brouhaha over this.”

“Never fear, my dear girl, we’ll take care of it,” he promised.

“Thanks, Dad, you’re the best!” she said, leaning over and kissing him on the cheek.

“You’re welcome. Now, I’m not sure you’ve heard yet, but the Princess is hosting a state dinner for the thestral emissary, and we’ve been invited,” he said. “So I need you to finish your tutoring early tomorrow so you can get ready in time.”

“Really? After what happened, she’s throwing her a party?”

“It’s established protocol, daughter,” Fleur de Lis told her. “All diplomats of her rank are given formal state dinners. She is the daughter of the thestral ruler.”

“So she’s a Princess?”

“Thestrals don’t have Princes and Princesses,” Fancy Pants told her. “I learned about their government today, after the Princess invited us to the dinner. The Night Queen’s daughter is the leader of their Royal Guard, which are called the Night Blades, and it’s their tradition that the eldest foal of the ruler serves as the leader. Moonblade isn’t even her real name, she assumed that name when she was appointed to the post. In a way, it’s both her name and her official title. Her actual name is Moonshade. Which, I guess, wouldn’t be that hard for her to adjust to Moonblade, given how similar they are,” he chuckled dryly.

“Weird.”

“I know. It seems that the thestral way is quite…well, it’s both barbaric and a bit chaotic. The ruler of the thestrals can be challenged at any time for the throne by any other thestral in a duel. And there’s little family loyalty involved in it,” he snorted. “The current ruler took the throne from her father, and from what I heard, nearly killed him in the process. The combatants aren’t allowed to surrender. It goes on until one either kills the other or incapacitates him, rendering him completely helpless,” he said, disgust shimmering in his voice. “Really, I don’t see how they establish a functioning government if the ruler can be deposed at any time by anypony in the realm. And I don’t see how the government runs efficiently if the ruler of the realm is determined by who has the biggest muscles, not who’s the most qualified.”

“So, the current ruler took the throne from her father while serving as the captain of his Royal Guard? Wouldn’t that be a bit, well, a bit traitorous?” Summer Dawn speculated.

“They’re not unicorns, my dear girl, even if they’re ponies,” Fancy Pants said. “They have their own way, and I suppose it works for them. It would never work here, though.”

“I…I’m not sure I want to go, Dad,” she said. “She tried to attack Starjumper, and he’s my teacher. I may not be very nice to her.” And what she didn’t tell him was that she didn’t want to talk to her for fear that her anger would get the best of her and that thestral somehow would find out that she and Starjumper were friends.

“You don’t have to strike up a conversation with her, daughter, but you do need to be there,” Fleur de Lis told her firmly. “If she tries to talk to you, just be polite and then excuse yourself. You know how to manage a situation like that.”

“Mom, Dad…maybe it’s not a very good idea to mention that he tutors me,” she said, realizing the potential problems that the situation may cause. “I don’t want her pestering me, or even worse, trying to find out where the Princess hid him because she may think I know where he is.”

They gave her a long look, then her father nodded. “A wise precaution, my dear girl,” he agreed.

Withers stepped up to the doorway. “Dinner will be served in a few minutes,” he announced.

“Excellent timing, my good stallion,” Fancy Pants declared eagerly. “I’m quite famished! Shall we remove ourselves to the dining room, ladies?”

As they made their way to the dining room, Summer Dawn was considering what her father said, and it made what she overheard Nightsong saying make more sense. Most thestrals think that her father lost on purpose so she could succeed him, she remembered Nightsong saying about the new Night Queen. Was that a set up? Did they game the thestral system so Moonblade’s mother could take over from her grandfather? Did her grandfather allow his daughter to beat him to within an inch of his life just to make it look convincing, or did they fight for real and he was outmatched? And if so, how would that affect the rest of the family for Moonblade’s mother to turn on her father that way?

And would Moonblade someday turn on her own mother, her desire to rule overcoming her family loyalty as it had for her mother?

Dear Celestia, how did thestrals even manage to function with that kind of potential hatred and paranoia boiling through the Night Queen’s family?

It seemed almost ridiculous to think that Nightsong would be from a society like that. She’d only met her once, but she seemed a spry, chipper, upbeat, very funny mare.

Well, maybe life was much different for thestrals that had no desire to rule. She really didn’t know much at all about thestral society, and that seemed kinda strange given she was friends with a half-thestral. But he never really talked about his thestral heritage, even if he seemed quite proud of it.

Yet another paradox that defined her friend.

One thing was for sure, she wasn’t starting on teleportation tomorrow. They wouldn’t have enough time. Tomorrow, she’d impress Starjumper with how competent she was with irregular shields, prove she was ready to move on, and they could start on teleportation on Friday…including talking him into giving her some weekend tutoring time so she could learn the spell matrix. He didn’t allow her to practice spell matrixes by herself until he proclaimed that she was competent enough not to blow her mane off if the spell went wrong. And given how hard teleportation had to be, no doubt if she messed that spell up, it would be both spectacular and painful.

Thursday. She could hardly wait. She was finally going to learn how to teleport. She was almost there!

The halls of the Royal Palace in Canterlot took on a slightly ominous feel late at night. The lights were turned down but not all the way out, turning the pristine hallways into dark, shadowy passages that had an ominous silence about them. A single hoofstep echoed up and down the hall, as if the darkness ahead and behind amplified the sound and then sent it back, and voices carried when spoken, causing most ponies to speak in whispers.

North Star had never liked the palace that much, truth be told, mainly because it put his own manor to shame…and North Star did not like anything that was grander than him, his holdings, or his family. He held a particular disdain for Princess Twilight and Princess Starlight, which he felt weren’t worthy of assuming the roles of the Royal Sisters. He would have accepted Princess Cadance and Princess Flurry Heart, for Cadance had ruled the Crystal Empire long enough to have experience and Flurry Heart was born an alicorn, which meant that she had been raised to rule, had been taught everything she needed to know to be a judicious ruler.

Not those two. Twilight had been a librarian before becoming a Princess, and Starlight had been a…a criminal! What insanity had possessed Celestia to ascend that reprobate to royalty? It took every ounce of his willpower and discipline to smile in that mare’s face and treat her with deference, when she wasn’t worthy to clean his spats!

So, since he held no true respect or loyalty to the Princesses that had been installed in place of the Royal Sister—even if the Royal Sisters had installed them—he felt no particular guilt over this meeting. Moonblade had gone after Starjumper before even reporting to the Royal Palace, and North Star both wanted to know why and possibly make arrangements for her to be…more successful if she had another chance. That stallion, that half-blood mongrel, had stained his family’s reputation, and what was worse, he was a better magician than his own son! And if that wasn’t bad enough, he had turned Fancy Pants’ filly into a competent magician! Really, that was what infuriated him more than anything else, that his son was being upstaged by the incompetent daughter of his greatest rival in Canterlot society! It made his son, and his family, look like laughing stocks that the ditzy, air-headed waste of space that was Summer Dawn was outperforming his son in school!

“Moonblade,” he said with a graceful bow as she opened her chamber door. She stepped back to allow him to enter, and he did so. She was alone in the chamber, he saw, her guards sleeping in other quarters, and had removed her armor. What it revealed was a slim, long-legged mare with a dark blue coat, black spots on her back legs, and a cutie mark comprising a white crescent moon with a flower in profile inside the arc of the crescent. He wasn’t quite sure which flower, he was no florist. She had yellow eyes with vertically slitted pupils, tufts on her ears, and fangs. Her leathery bat wings were folded to her sides, the tips of them spreading over her cutie mark to partially conceal it. “I’m honored you agreed to this meeting.”

“You’re here to get to the point, unicorn,” she said in a strong voice as she closed the door. “You said you had information about him?”

“I can’t tell you where they’re hiding him, nopony in the palace knows. I can, however, tell you who might have that information,” he offered. “But, I’d like to know a little bit about why you want him.”

She gave him a direct look. “I can’t,” she answered. “The treaty between Equestria and the Nightlands forbids me from discussing him in any way.”

“I see nopony here that’s going to care if you violate the treaty,” he said calmly.

“You really have no clue, do you?” she said acidly, which made him quell a sudden surge of anger. “The treaty was sealed with magic. If I violate it, the Princess will know. And the penalty for violating it when I stand on Equestrian soil doesn’t make it worth it, not just to satisfy your curiosity, unicorn.”

“So, what you’re saying is that if I can read the original treaty, I could find out? If it was sealed by magic, then the conditions of the treaty have to be spelled out quite explicitly.”

“Actually, you could,” she mused. “Now, who knows where he is?”

“He’s been teaching magic to a mare in his class, a mare named Summer Dawn,” he answered. “She’s the only unicorn in the city that he lets anywhere near him. If anypony knows where he is, she does.”

“That’s it? That’s all you have?” she asked.

“I can tell you where he’s been living. It’s actually right outside the Royal Palace, a small tower on the school grounds directly across from the fence on the south side of the palace. Perhaps you or one of your guards could find something there that might tell you where the Princess has hidden him.”

“They wouldn’t be that obvious,” she said, mainly to herself, turning and walking deeper into the room. “Damn that alicorn, having that unicorn teleport him away. That doesn’t even leave a scent trail to follow,” she complained.

“A…what? Scent trail?”

“Do I look like a unicorn to you, unicorn?” she said, looking over her shoulder at him. “Thestrals have much sharper senses than you do. I could track him by his scent if not for them using magic to move him. And no doubt he warned the Princess about that, so she’s ready for me if I try to track him down,” she said sourly.

“Then I believe your best lead will be the mare,” North Star urged. “If anypony knows where he is, she does.”

She didn’t answer, turning halfway towards him. “Fine. But I am curious, unicorn, why you’re so willing to throw him on the fire.”

“He doesn’t belong in Canterlot,” he replied stiffly. “He’s an unclean, tainted mongrel, a desecration of the purity of noble unicorn blood He’s an absolute savage, uncivilized and violent, and he threatened to harm my son. This city is defiled by his hooves on its cobblestones.”

“Mongrel, eh? You have no idea how close that description is to the truth,” she said lightly. “Thestrals would call him an abomination, because he’s contaminated by unicorn blood.”

“We can disagree which half of him makes him a mongrel, so long as we agree that he is one, and has no place in Canterlot,” he replied simply. “And I want him gone from my city.”

“And if he dies?”

“It removes him from the city,” he answered steadily. “And I dare say that I’d find that to be a much preferable outcome. I would guess that that’s your preferred outcome as well.”

“Not for your trivial reasons,” she told him shortly. “I’m protecting my race and my realm from the threat he poses. I’m not trying to kill him because he revealed that your son is a coward and made your family look bad to all the other stuck up snobs in this city.”

North Star raised his head harshly, giving her a cold, malicious look. “My reasons are my own. All that matters is that our interests coincide,” he replied frostily.

“In one way and one way only,” she answered. “But I will say this. After meeting you, now I fully understand why it’s long been thestral custom to have nothing to do with unicorns.”

His eyes flashed, but he held his composure. “Then I believe we are done here, Moonblade,” he said in a tightly controlled voice.

“We are. I would suggest that you never ask for another private meeting,” she said in a strong, direct voice. “Else my thestral savagery get the best of me in the face of a pony as petty as you.”

Without another word, North Star turned and walked out of her room, maintaining his dignity even as he seethed beneath that cultured veneer. That…barbarian! The gall to think that she was in any way even close to being in his league! Now he knew where all of that hated stallion’s bad manners came from! He was right to believe that his thestral blood made him sub-pony. She was right, he wasn’t just a mongrel, he was an abomination! All thestrals were!

He swept regally down the passageway to the nearest alcove, stepped into it, and then focused all his concentration and summoned forth every bit of magical power he could manifest. It would take everything for him to cast this spell, and when he was home, he would be exhausted almost to the point where he would pass out, just as he had very nearly fainted getting into the palace without being detected. But it had been worth it to get in and get out without the Princess knowing.

It would be worth it.

He very carefully built his spell, and then, gritting his teeth against the pain and exhaustion that he knew was coming, he released it.

In a circular burst of magic, North Star vanished from the hallway.

Back in her guest chamber, Moonblade conferred with her lieutenant, who had been in the room the whole time and simply hadn’t been noticed by that arrogant unicorn. Like most groundbounds, he had never thought to look up, where her trusted subordinate and friend was on the ceiling directly over the door, his body hidden in the dark shadows up by the ceiling.

“Can you believe that unicorn?” she asked him in Thestralla. “And I thought those stuck-up unicorns in Unicornia were bad! I never want to come back here again!”

“He did bring us some useful information,” Saber noted. “Now we just have to find this mare and see if she knows where they’re hiding the Lykan.”

“I can find out,” she said, glancing at him. “Luna’s detachment knows a whole lot about the ponies here in Canterlot. If this Summer Dawn has ever been to the palace, that’ll be a name they know.”

“It’s a good thing their loyalty is to the Night Queen, not this Equestrian Princess,” Saber said with relief.

“Count yourself lucky Luna isn’t here,” Moonblade grunted. “If she was, they wouldn’t talk out of respect for her. But they don’t have the same loyalty to this Princess Starlight, even if she is standing in Luna’s stead and is raising the moon.”

He was quiet a long moment. “With all due respect, Moonblade, we may have missed our chance. We should have killed him this morning when we had him surrounded.”

“We can’t do that until after I officially void the treaty, Saber. You seem to forget just who the retribution spell bound into the treaty will strike if it’s triggered. And I for one would not want to go home to face my mother after dropping that on her head. She might kill me. She might kill all of us,” she growled. “We got him to show us some of his magic, and that’ll help when the time comes. We probably got into his head, too, and scared ponies make mistakes,” she added. “Just keep the Night Blades ready. Once we find out where he is, I’ll void the treaty, and we can do what must be done.”

“And if it starts a war?”

“Better to be at war as thestrals than at peace as earth ponies,” she declared adamantly.

“Amen,” he agreed.

The Gray Mare Comes

This was the day.

Starjumper sat at the upstairs writing desk and finished up a report he had to write for the Princess, glancing at the clock. Twenty minutes, and he’d be teleporting Summer Dawn in so she could start this most important lesson. Today, they were going to start on teleportation. He wanted to start yesterday, but Summer Dawn had to leave early to go to that party, and he supposed that he’d talk to her about that before they got down to the business of learning magic. No doubt she’d seen something or learned something last night, and she was his only real source of news of the outside world.

To say that he was a prisoner in the apartment was an understatement. He wasn’t allowed out, and there was magic set up around the apartment to ensure that they couldn’t detect him inside, since the warding spell that the Princess put up was more or less useless if they were wearing those spell dampeners. There were charged illusions that he had to maintain placed over every window that showed a static image of the inside of the apartment, making it look like the apartment was empty. And because he was dealing with thestrals here, he knew how to create the illusions to fool thestral eyes, to add those details that pony eyes couldn’t see that would convince them that the illusions were real. The illusions were one way, covering over the windows like blankets to prevent a pony from seeing through them in either direction, which also blocked any light coming from the inside after dark. He had to keep strips of cloth against the bottoms of the doors so light didn’t bleed out from under the crack, which would create an incongruency that an observant flyer may notice…and thestrals were observant. Starjumper cast a spell twice a day, just after sunrise and before sunset, that prevented any pony’s scent from crossing the thresholds of the doors or window sills, which kept a thestral from sniffing around the apartment and catching fresh scents, yet left the scents that had already left behind as a lingering trace to trick them into thinking he wasn’t inside. Nopony was allowed to come and go from the apartment, which really only applied to Summer Dawn and himself, so Starjumper would be getting his food and supplies via magic. The Princess herself would be delivering his groceries by teleporting them in with her when he needed them.

His father had designed that spell, one of the arsenal of spells that he’d taught Starjumper to help protect him from the thestrals. And it showed just how good at magic his father was, that he could design a spell based on something he couldn’t sense himself.

The spell dampeners had changed the playing field in one way, and that was that Starjumper understood that he needed a contingency plan for dealing with the possibility that the thestrals would invade the apartment. They would allow the thestrals to get into the apartment, so if the spells that were hiding him failed, he’d have little in the way of hard protection. That had caused him to prepare an escape route that had nothing to do with him needing magic to use it, in the form of a hidden door in the floor into the void space at the base of the tower under the apartment, which led to a tunnel that he’d made with the stoneshaping spell that led under the fence of the Royal Palace and ended just on the other side of a wall in the cellars under the building. The wall was thin enough that even as a thestral, he’d be able to break through it just with a few well placed kicks of his back hooves. He hadn’t told the Princess about the tunnel, and he wasn’t going to, because she couldn’t make plans for something she didn’t know was there, and those were plans that the thestrals couldn’t see. If he was the only pony that knew about the tunnel, then nopony was going to be able to plan for it, friend or foe.

He didn’t tell the Princess about the spell dampeners for the same reason he didn’t tell her about the tunnel. If she knew, it would change her plans, and since the thestrals were already here, they’d see that change. They couldn’t know that he knew about the spell dampeners, it would rob him of a critical advantage if he ended up having to fight them. The magic hiding him from the thestrals wouldn’t be countered by the spell dampeners because it wasn’t active magic being used against them, one of the ways a spell dampener could be outfoxed, and even if they knew where he was staying, the fact that the apartment was under constant and very obvious surveillance by the EUP on the balcony across from it would keep them from poking around. And since those guards weren’t stationed at the apartment, it further reinforced the deception that Starjumper was being hidden somewhere else.

Sometimes, the best place to hide something was in the first place that somepony would look for it. It was almost childishly obvious that the Princess wouldn’t be stupid enough to hide Starjumper in his own apartment, which made it the best possible place for him to be hidden. It was the most obvious place, the first place a pony would look, but the last place they would ever expect him to be.

As prison cells went, it wasn’t all that bad. The Princess was going to supply him with any food he wanted while he was stuck in here, so he didn’t have to pay for anything. She’d also sent him over a ton of books holding some really advanced magic spells, so he’d have plenty to keep him busy, given that some of the spells were both advanced and cool. He’d never even heard of a lot of those spells, and some of them were really darn useful. The Princess had delved deep into her library, he’d noticed, because they were her personal books. Some of them had notes in the margins in her hornwriting.

The other good news was that his family would be on the way to Canterlot tomorrow morning, and were scheduled to arrive around noon. There were pegasi from the EUP in Baltimare to serve as guards for them until they left, as Princess Twilight honored her promise to keep his family safe while the thestrals were in Equestria. It was going to be good to see his family, he’d really missed them while he’d been in Canterlot, even though these weren’t the greatest of circumstances.

He finished up the report and sent it off to the Princess using the mailbox, then he more or less just paced around the apartment waiting for the appointed time. That was when Summer Dawn knew to be in her room and the mirror in place, and he wasn’t going to be a creepy peeper and cast the spell to look into her room any time but when he told her that he would. Luckily he didn’t have to wait that long, so when the clock chimed with its pony-set alarm to tell him it was time, he was already sitting at the downstairs writing desk and casting the spell on the mirror to look through it and to the one in Summer Dawn’s room. When the image formed, he saw her standing in front of her bed, her usual spot, and that made it very easy for him. He charged the scrying spell to hold long enough for him to get her over here, then focused all his attention on the image and got a lock on Summer Dawn using his magic.

In a circular burst of golden magic, she disappeared from the image of her room, and she reappeared standing right beside him by the writing desk.

“How was the dinner?” he asked immediately.

“It was not fun,” she replied in a serious voice, lifting her saddlebags off her back with her magic. “And it was weird. Really weird.”

“How so?”

That thestral stared at me all night,” she answered. “I swear, Star, any time I looked in her direction, she was looking right at me. It was really creeping me out by the time we sat down to dinner. I kept thinking that she knew that you’re my tutor, but I don’t see how she could.”

“That is a bit strange,” he agreed, standing up. “Did she talk to you?”

“She didn’t talk to anypony,” she answered. “That was by far the most awkward dinner I’ve ever attended. But that also means that I didn’t see or hear anything that you might want to know. She just stood to the side and glared at anypony that got anywhere near her.”

“I’m not surprised,” he said darkly. “Thestrals have a particular disdain for unicorns. It’s why it’s even more surprising that Mom married one,” he added with a grim chuckle. “Then again, Dad was born and raised in an earth pony town, so he’s more like an earth pony with a horn than anything else.”

“What’s wrong with unicorns?”

“Canterlot society perfectly sums up why thestrals don’t like unicorns,” he said with a direct look at her.

“I think we’d better get started on our lessons,” she said tartly, which made him smile at her.

He sat her down on her cushion, then sat down in front of her. “Alright, then, Summer. Teleportation,” he said, which made her grin eagerly and clap her front hooves together. “I’ve already explained the basics of how the spell works, now to explain the basics of the spell’s mechanics. This is a snap spell, Summer. This has to be cast very fast, so you have to have everything organized in your mind before you even start building the matrix. Once you start it, you have about half a second to finish and release the spell. If you go over that time, then the energy it takes to cast the spell goes up exponentially, as does the risk of it going wrong,” he warned. “So that means that this is a snap spell, you build it and release it as quickly as possible. Understand?”

She nodded vigorously.

“This spell is fairly complex, Summer, so it’s going to be a real test of your spellcasting skills. That’s why you’ve studied the other spells and learned the tricks I’ve taught you, to prepare you for this. Not only is this a very complex spell, you have to cast it as fast as you possibly can. So,” he said, looking up. Over their heads and between them, a staging field formed. “Watch closely.”

He built the spell slowly, allowing her to see the shape of it, and he heard her give a bit of a nervous gasp when he just kept adding more, and more, and more. “Whoa, this is the most complicated spell I’ve ever seen,” she admitted.

“Welcome to the big leagues, Summer Dawn,” he told her evenly. “This is real magic. High order magic. Do you think you have what it takes to learn it?”

“You bet I do,” she replied immediately. “Build it again. It’s hard to see the core of it like this.”

She was determined, and determined to impress…and impress she did. After about four hours of him constantly building the spell from scratch so she could see the matrix, she started working on it, and she did amazingly well for the very first day. She came nowhere near to building it correctly all day, but each attempt got closer and closer. By the time the clock gave three bells, she had managed to correctly build about three quarters of the spell, and was ironing out the parts of it that changed depending on how it was being used. But the core matrix of the spell, the part that never changed, that she was very close to mastering.

In just one day.

He had to give her a long, impressed look as she got up from her cushion. He knew she was a prodigy, he knew she was gifted, but holy Celestia. He was again intimidated and humbled by both her immense power and her instinctive understanding of the magic he was teaching her. At the rate she was learning, she may be ready for her first attempt to cast the spell next week.

It took his father nearly three moons to get to where she got in a little under four hours.

Incredible. Just…incredible.

“I’m tempted to make you let me stay until seven bells,” she grumbled a bit, then gave him the most outrageously insincere smile. “Soooo, tomorrow’s Saturday, and I have all day, and I know you have lots of free time,” she urged. “How about you bring me over right after sunrise and I’ll just leave my parents a note? I’ll tell them I went out with Crystal and Berry.”

“I…I guess I could,” he said, which made her literally jump up and down in place and give a happy little sound. Really, she was like a little foal sometimes, but that just made her charming. “But my family’s going to be here tomorrow around noon, so it won’t be an all day tutoring session.”

“Oh, awesome! I really want to talk to your Mom again! And can I meet your Dad and siblings?” she asked eagerly.

“I suppose, but you’re going to be disappointed.”

“What a thing to say!” she accused.

“They’re shopkeepers from an earth pony town, Summer. Silver Moon is preparing to take over the shop when Mom and Dad retire, and my sisters are still foals. I’m sure they’ll be quite boring to a pony like you.”

She gave him an accusing look. “You’re making fun of me,” she said, more a statement than a question.

“Am I?” he asked in a level tone.

“Yes, you are,” she declared primly.

“If you say so,” he said flippantly, then wheezed a bit when she poked her hoof into his side. “You’d better rethink that attitude before you end up reappearing a thousand feet over your house instead of in your bedroom,” he threatened, which made her grin at him impudently. “Ready?”

“Yeah, I’m ready. So, sunrise tomorrow?”

“Alright. Be ready to work.”

“I will,” she promised as his horn blazed with golden magic. She disappeared in a circular burst of golden magic as he sent her back to her room, then he blew out his breath and picked up her cushion and set it on the couch set against the low wall that was the base of the second floor bedroom.

And now that she was gone, the apartment seemed…empty.

He settled at the writing table to get in as much of the essay he was writing as he could before sunset, and he had to write with the quill between his teeth. It had taken years to master the art of matching his hornwriting with his manual writing as a thestral, so there was no disparity in his schoolwork that the teacher might notice. But, given this was for Princess Twilight, he supposed it wouldn’t matter all that much.

He finished about an hour after sunset, sitting at the desk with his wings partially open and the quill between his teeth, then let the ink dry as he attended to dinner. He felt…enclosed despite how large the apartment was, standing in the kitchen and making a plain sandwich. He had to, since if he cooked, the smell might escape the apartment and alert a thestral that a supposedly empty apartment had hot food being cooked in it. He couldn’t see through the windows due to the illusions, and that had more of an effect on him than he expected, since it made him feel completely cut off from the rest of the world. The only way he knew if it was daytime or nighttime was if he had a horn or wings, and his clock was the only indication to him that time was moving. The apartment was sealed away from the rest of the world, it was quiet, and it was…a little foreboding.

And without Summer Dawn here, it felt empty.

Luna’s grace, that mare had really gotten into his head.

At least tomorrow he’d have his family in to visit, so this place wouldn’t seem so much like a prison cell. It would be filled with laughter and warmth, of the beautiful voices of his mother and sister as they sang, the unintentional mischief Dancer would cause as she got into everything, as her curiosity got the best of her, and the new spells she would show off that their father taught her. And she’d also proudly show off her new fang, which would look a bit silly since she only had one of them. It would make her look like she had a snaggletooth.

It would be a nice diversion from the serious business going on around here the last couple of days.

It was a crystal clear, cold night, the air still and not a cloud in the sky, and despite the icy chill, being out there would be far preferable to Moonblade than being in this ridiculously garish room. Other ponies had terrible taste in themes, since they didn’t seem to understand that an object that they thought was one color was actually a different color, so their furniture sets and carpets and curtains often clashed horribly with each other if they were made from different materials. Ponies could only see a limited number of colors, and that made their aesthetics…well, a lack of them really.

The furniture in this completely overblown bedroom was the perfect example of that. The furniture was very well made, quite beautiful in its construction actually, but they didn’t match. The two chairs matched the divan, but those three pieces didn’t match the two couches or the ottoman. The fabric used to upholster them was different, and while they thought that they were all dyed the same color, the fact was that they weren’t. And the furniture didn’t match the curtains around the four poster bed, which didn’t match the curtains flanking the windows. And the color of those curtains on the walls…ick. That was the worst shade of maju she’d ever seen.

It was a good thing she wasn’t here to appreciate the décor, however. She was sitting at a writing desk at the back of the room with a book sitting on it, and she wasn’t alone in the room. One of the Luna’s guards was standing beside her, a stallion that Moonblade knew from before taking over the leadership of the Night Blades. Longblade had been an officer in the thestral army before being selected to come to Equestria to serve a tour in Luna’s Royal Guard, and had been one of her instructors when she learned how to use wingblades. And it was that personal connection that brought him to her room in the middle of the night, when the Princesses and most of the palace was asleep, but the height of activity for a thestral.

“She didn’t seem like all that much,” Moonblade mused as she looked over at her former instructor. “And by the moon, did she ever glare at me every time our eyes met,” she added with an amused little chuckle. “She’s the daughter of one of their high society?”

“The most prominent members of society, Fancy Pants and Fleur de Lis,” he answered. “I would suggest in the strongest possible terms that whatever you do, you do not make those two angry.”

“I’m not worried about offending some dandelion sniffer, Longblade.”

“That dandelion sniffer is in a position to almost personally talk the Princess into declaring war if you outrage him,” Longblade warned. “And regardless of what you or your mother may think, Moonblade, the Nightlands is in no way prepared to take on Equestria. They can put our chins on the ground without so much as sending a single soldier across the eastern sea.”

“I find that a bit hard to believe,” she snorted. “Our thestral forces are the bravest and most skilled warriors in the world!”

“You truly have not even spent a single night considering the political situation, have you?” he asked bluntly, which made her eyes flash. “Where do we get most of our food from, Moonblade?”

“From the griffons and hippogryphs.”

“Where do they get that food from?”

“They grow it,” she replied.

“Where? Their territory is the same as ours, high mountains with few fertile valleys for agriculture. They trade for that food, the same as we do, and we prefer trading with them because they’re not ponies. And who do you think trades them that food?”

She was silent a long moment.

“That’s right. They get it from Equestria. This realm is the bread basket of the entire world,” he told her. “Equestria produces more food than every other realm in the world combined. Every ship you saw coming across the eastern sea on your journey here was loaded with food, bound for the eastern kingdoms. So, Moonblade, if you anger the Princess, she can cut off those supply lines with a single command, and force us to devote significant forces to invading Maretonia or Unicornia to secure their food supplies, getting us into yet another war. That will leave the Nightlands virtually undefended, which causes the problem I don’t think you or your mother has considered. Cutting off the food supplies to the eastern kingdoms will make the griffons and hippogryphs starve. And what do you think they will do when they find out that their food supplies were cut off because of us, then find our territory all but undefended?”

She looked away from him.

“So you see, my young student, Equestria can put us into a war on three fronts without sending a single soldier across the eastern sea. I told you yesterday that this was a poorly thought out plan. Now I see that the Night Queen didn’t think about this at all. Yes, the Lykan is a threat to our race, but you are going about this all wrong. What your mother should be doing is sending you here to pile on additional restrictions and assurances that keeps the Lykan within the borders of Equestria, keep him away from the Night Stone and ensure that our race is protected, not sending you here with this harebrained scheme to void the treaty and kill him before the Princess can respond.”

“What would you have us do, Longblade?” she demanded hotly. “So long as he lives, our entire race is in danger! Do you want to wake up some evening and find yourself on the floor of your room without your wings, never to fly again?”

“And there, Moonblade, is where you’ve made your biggest mistake,” he told her flatly.

“How?”

“By assuming that that’s what he wants to do,” he said intently. “Did it ever occur to you that if he shatters the Night Stone, he loses his own wings? He’d be nothing but a unicorn after that.”

“Well….why wouldn’t he? It’s the only way he can end his curse!”

“What is the first rule of war, Moonblade?” he challenged in reply.

“Know your enemy,” she replied automatically.

“Do you know the Lykan? Do you know his intentions, or are you making an assumption?” he answered. “I don’t know what his motivations are, but neither do you, and you’re the one that’s about to put our kingdom on the brink of war and jeopardize our entire race,” he said sternly. “But I will tell you this, Moonblade, and mark me well. If he has no intention to shatter the Night Stone now, if you try to kill him and fail, then he will. He will do exactly what you fear most, because of you. He’ll see it as the only way he can ever be free of the threat we pose to him, because he will never trust our word again. Not after we intentionally broke the treaty so we could kill him, and do it like cowards with a cheap shot sneak attack at that. And if that happens, if we are changed into earth ponies because of your blind loyalty and your mother’s short-sightedness, you may not live long enough to get out of the Nightlands to begin your life of exile. Everypony will blame you for that disaster.”

She gave him a surprised look filled with both offense and anger.

“I am loyal to the Nightlands, and that loyalty is the only reason I’m going to walk out of this room and pretend this conversation never happened, Moonblade,” he told her bluntly. “I believe that you will make the right choice, if you take the time to think this through objectively. I taught you to always analyze the battle before you so you can apply the correct tactics and achieve victory, my former student. I think you’d better do that now, before you make a terrible mistake.”

And with that, Longblade strode briskly to the door, and then out of the room.

Moonblade glared at the closed door for a long moment, then blew out her breath and turned to look back at the book on the desk. As much as she wanted to rip his wings off in that moment…he was right about one thing. Given the dark reality of what would be facing the Nightlands if they incited a war with Equestria, it did seem a bit…reckless for her mother to pursue this. She would be the first thestral to agree that the Lykan was a threat to their very existence, and that it was better to fight a war as thestrals than have that Lykan shatter the Night Stone and strip of them of everything…but maybe they should have thought this through a little more.

No. She trusted her mother, and trusted that the Night Queen knew more about what was going on than she did. She was a soldier, she was the one carrying out the plan, a plan her mother had carefully considered and then put into action with far more information available to her than Moonblade could see. She didn’t need to know the reasoning behind that plan, she only had to do her duty. And it was her orders to kill the Lykan, through whatever means necessary, even if she had to plunge the Nightlands into war with Equestria.

Know her enemy. Now that was good advice, she could admit. She knew nothing about this Lykan. She only knew what her mother told her, that he was a unicorn magician not to be taken lightly during the day, enough of a threat for her mother to send the Night Blades with precious spell dampeners, and at night, he would no doubt be a powerful and agile flyer due to his Longwing bloodline. The Longwings were famous in the Nightlands for their aerial prowess, thanks to those abnormally large wings that gave them superior speed and maneuverability. That bloodline was why she brought an entire squad of Night Blades, so they could use their numerical superiority to counter his advantage. Being able to outrun and out-turn the thestrals did him no good if there were enough of them to box him in. And since he knew that the thestrals were after him, he would be prepared for a confrontation. He would have training as a thestral in how to fight back against them, and as a unicorn, he would know magic like that shield he put up, magic that he would believe would give him the advantage against them.

She needed to learn more about this Lykan, and with him hidden away by the Princess, the only pony that could tell her more was the little filly that had been tutoring under him.

She wondered if that unicorn had any idea just what was teaching her. And for that matter, she wondered just what the ponies of Canterlot would do if they found out his secret. Ponies had their own legends about the Lykans, legends that the thestrals themselves had carefully cultivated and spread to make Lykans hated pariahs and rob them of potential sanctuaries, and if the ponies of Canterlot were anything like that bethkla North Star, it might be quite easy to turn the city against him.

She and the Night Blades were proscribed by the treaty from revealing what they knew of him…but a vindictive little brath like North Star would gleefully do their dirty work for them. All she had to do was figure out a way for him to find out the truth without triggering the magic of the treaty.

The treaty.

He’d said it himself, all he had to do was read the treaty. And while she was absolutely sure that the copy of the treaty held by Equestria was locked in some vault somewhere, she didn’t need the original. The treaty never referred to the Lykan as a Lykan, but there was more than enough there for a pony to figure things out based on the wording. And since the treaty didn’t outright name him as a Lykan, it wouldn’t trigger the treaty if she sent a copy of it to the unicorn. The treaty was drawn up to protect the secret of his identity, to prevent the thestrals from coming over and ruining his life in Equestria by spreading the truth, and it was going to be the treaty itself that exposed him to the ponies that were unwittingly protecting him.

Irony was sometimes a delicious thing.

She could reproduce that treaty, word for word, by memory. After all, she studied it quite carefully before coming here so she would know exactly what she could and could not do in order to obey its provisions.

She put the book aside and set a clean piece of parchment in front of her, then took up a writing quill and started writing, and she couldn’t help but smile maliciously around the quill between her teeth. But that malicious smile dissolved into a shocked gasp as she recoiled violently when the parchment before her burst into flame the instant she wrote the first word of the treaty!

Damn those unicorns and their magic! There had to be some kind of spell in place that prevented the treaty from being copied while on Equestrian soil!

She smothered the flames with her hoof, cursing sulfurously as she put out the flames, then glared savagely at the black burn mark left behind on the polished wooden desk. Well, that told her that these unicorns were far more clever than she expected. And it also gave her a stark warning that the magic bound into the treaty was very much in effect, and she’d better tread very carefully.

Her plan ruined, she paced the room with an ugly expression, trying to think of some other way she could expose the Lykan without getting herself barbecued or her mother hammered by the retribution spell. There had to be some books that had the Lykan tales in them in their library, she supposed. She could check one out and leave it for that arrogant unicorn, but she wouldn’t be able to bookmark the page. That would violate the treaty. She’d have to trust that he would read the book and figure it out on his own…and given how dumb he seemed, that may not be a given. Arrogance breeds ignorance, her teachers would always say, since the arrogant thestral thought she was right all the time, and thus didn’t bother to learn how wrong she was.

Or, she could go back to her original idea. The delicate-looking little mare knew him, and as North Star suggested, she may be the key to finding out where they were hiding the Lykan. And something told her that she knew more about what was going on than anypony else in this city, given how nasty those stares were she was giving her when they looked at each other at the dinner yesterday. Little Summer Dawn did not like Moonblade, not one bit, so that meant that she had to know why the Lykan was afraid of them.

She returned to the writing desk and pulled out a fresh sheet of parchment, then quickly wrote out a series of orders. The Princess was keeping her and the Night Blades in the palace and under surveillance, but what she was not watching was the detachment of thestrals here to serve Princess Starlight. And those thestrals were loyal to the Nightlands, so they would obey an order given by the Moonblade. She outranked them in thestral military hierarchy. If she ordered them to keep eyes on that little slip of a unicorn, they would do so. And she would lead them to the Lykan.

And…perhaps, she should listen to her former instructor. She did not know this Lykan. She did not know her enemy. And that may lead her into making a critical mistake. So perhaps she needed to learn more about him…and there was only pony in Canterlot that could answer her questions.

The unicorn.

Until morning, until that little slip of a unicorn woke up and started her day, she really didn’t have anything to do. So, she flitted up to the ceiling, quite deftly twisted her legs up and got her back hooves on a heavy beam, then dangled down from that grip and settled in, wrapping her wings around herself. She didn’t often sleep this time of night, but the need to be up all day to deal with the day dwellers meant that she’d need a nap tonight. Besides, napping was a great way to pass the time, and as a soldier, she had learned to get her sleep whenever and wherever she could. After all, there was no telling when she might have the next chance to grab a nap..

She closed her eyes, and with practiced discipline, she drifted off to sleep.

She was awake well before dawn, and was going the moment her clock went off.

It was going to be an exciting day, between trying to learn the teleportation spell and meeting Starjumper’s family, and that excitement had made it hard for her to sleep last night. She woke up several times over the night hoping that it was close to dawn, and felt almost disappointed when she found out how wrong she was. She did finally manage to calm down enough to get some good sleep in, enough to need the alarm clock to wake her up, and now she had to get everything ready for her long day.

The first thing she did was rush down to the kitchen and have a quick breakfast, wolfing down some bagels and milk, then she wrote a note to her parents telling them that she went out early to go hang out with her friends and would be back that afternoon. She left it on the kitchen table where they were sure to see it, then she rushed back up to her room to wait for Starjumper to chime the mirror. That wouldn’t be until after sunrise, but that wouldn’t be very long. She could practice her shield spells while she waited. She rushed back up to her room and slowed down when she came in, since her balcony doors were open and a cold wind was blowing into the room, sending flakes of snow swirling around the room and billowing the curtains on the windows of the doors. She advanced up to her balcony and looked out, but saw nothing. She must not have closed them very well, and given how windy it had gotten, the prelude to another scheduled snow shower, the wind must have gotten to them.

“You’re much smaller out of that dress than I expected.”

Summer Dawn nearly jumped, whirling around to see that thestral! She was crouched on the outside wall over the doors, her body oriented down towards the floor and her head arched to look at her. She “stood” up on the side of the wall and dropped down to the balcony, physically cutting her off from getting back inside.

“You! What do you want?” she demanded, her horn limning over with pink magic as she brought forth her magic from her core and held it ready, a trick Starjumper taught her that would let her cast spells much faster. The thestral moved out from the doorway, slowly and steadily walking towards the rail.

“To talk,” she answered. “Which I think would benefit both of us.”

“And how do you figure that?” Summer Dawn flared. “I know who you are. I know what you think.”

“And what exactly do I think, unicorn?” she asked pointedly.

“That Star is some terrible monster that’s going to ruin your people,” she answered.

“That’s what he is, unicorn. It’s part of the very essence of who and what he is,” she replied simply. “Since you already know the truth, I can be frank with you. He is a Lykan,” she stated strongly. She then looked around, as if expecting something to happen, and when it didn’t, she gave a victorious little smile. “Given that the magic bound into the treaty didn’t just activate, that means you already knew that,” she said in satisfaction. “Did he tell you what a Lykan is?”

“He told me about the legend,” she answered. “So, the thestrals want to kill him over an old fable?”

“It’s no fable,” she replied directly. “I’ve seen the Night Stone, unicorn. I’ve stood in the room where we keep it, and I’ve felt the magic that radiates from it. I’ve heard its song, I’ve felt its magic reverberate in my very soul, so I have no doubt that who and what we are as thestrals is because of the Night Stone. And if the Night Stone is real, then I have no doubt that the rest of that legend is also real.” Summer Dawn narrowed her eyes, and when the thestral stopped and turned towards her quickly, she reacted almost out of instinct. A spherical shield of pink magic formed around her, surges of bright pink shimmering along its surface. “My, we’re a jumpy little thing, aren’t we?” the thestral asked, almost mockingly.

“I think I have a good reason to be jumpy when you’re standing on my balcony without being invited,” she answered. “And after what I saw you and your bullies do a couple of days ago, I don’t have any reason to be nice to you, or believe that you’re going to be civil. Are your bully friends going to drop out of the sky and surround me, too? Are you going to threaten me the way you did him, threaten to hurt me if I don’t tell you where he is?”

“You have me at the disadvantage, unicorn. I don’t have my wingblades. I have no doubt that you could use your magic on me before I could get anywhere near you,” she said, sitting down on the snowy balcony floor. “So, it’s abundantly clear that I’m only here to talk. That being established, I ask again. Do you know what a Lykan is?”

“I’ve seen it with my own eyes,” she retorted. “And I’m not afraid of him.”

“Well then, I suppose this is your chance to prove I don’t have a reason to be afraid of him either. The reason I’m here in Canterlot is so my mother can be assured that the Lykan will uphold his side of the bargain and stay away from the Nightlands. So, if you know him so well, then convince me, unicorn. Convince me that I should leave Canterlot without demanding his head on a platter.”

“I don’t think there’s anything I can say that would change your mind,” Summer Dawn replied evenly, taking a couple of steps back, towards the balcony doors. “If you’re so convinced that the legend is real, then you don’t care about anything other than the fear that drives you to be awful to him.”

Her eyes flashed a little, but when she spoke, her voice was still calm and composed. “Well, has he ever talked of going to the Nightlands?”

“No. He doesn’t want to start a war between the Nightlands and Equestria. Besides, his whole life is here in Equestria. His family is here, he can’t pursue his magical studies anywhere but here, so his career and his life’s work is here. All he wants is to live a normal life like every other pony, but ponies like you make that impossible for him,” she said accusingly.

“And he’s never talked about the Night Stone, and the legend?”

“He told me about the legend once, when he told me who he is. That’s the first and last time I’ve ever heard of it,” she answered.

“And where do you fit into his perfect little normal life, unicorn?”

“Starjumper is a professional tutor. He teaches magic for a living,” she replied tightly. “I’m his student.”

“You’re more than a student,” she said dryly, looking her up and down in a way that made Summer Dawn feel uncomfortable.

“He’s my friend,” she replied, almost primly. “I hired him to help me pass my finals, and we became friends during my tutoring sessions. It took him a while to trust me, but he eventually did enough to tell me the truth. He makes enough as a tutor to pursue his magical studies when he’s not teaching.”

“My, that sounds so…pedestrian,” she drawled.

“What do you expect? You think he spends his days scheming to bring down the thestrals in some dark lair like a cheesy comic book villain?” Summer Dawn demanded. “He has a life, a life that has nothing to do with him being a Lykan! You seem convinced that all he ever thinks about is his teeeerrrrribllllle cuuuuuurse,” she said in a mockingly spooky voice, “when the truth is, he’s just like every other pony in Canterlot. He does his best to live as normal a life as he can despite being a Lykan, not letting what he is dictate who he is. The only difference between him and other ponies is that he trades in his horn for wings when the moon rises, and because of all the old stories about were-ponies, he has to keep that a secret. It doesn’t change who he is, it only changes what he looks like. Celestia’s grace, you really are clueless!”

“Given what he can do to me and my race, we are fully justified in being a little melodramatic,” she replied evenly. “If we misjudge him, it can destroy my entire race, everything we are, all of our history and tradition. Our entire civilization is at risk. So excuse me if I approach him from any direction other than extreme skepticism. The consequences if I make a mistake would be absolutely ghastly.”

“Then I see that this conversation is pointless,” she declared. “You said I had to convince you that he’s no danger to the thestrals, but you’ve already convinced yourself that he can’t be anything but a danger to the thestrals. Your mind is already made up,” she declared. “So I’m done talking to you. I can see now that you’re just trying to get me to talk so you can try to find out where he is.” She backed partially through the balcony doors. “But keep this in mind, thestral. If you hurt him, if you try to kill him, I will do everything in my power to make sure you regret it,” she promised in an ugly voice.

She laughed scornfully. “And what can you do, little unicorn?”

“I don’t live in this big mansion because I’m the maid,” she replied, suddenly turning nearly as haughty and arrogant as many of the other society ponies in the city, her voice vibrating with both confidence and superiority.

“And just who do you think you’re talking to, little girl? My mother is the Night Queen.”

“And I’m sure you were so proud of her when she took that throne away from your grandfather,” she said icily.

“Don’t you speak about my mother that way, you little nothing!” she shouted suddenly.

“So, is it true? Did your grandfather lay down and let your mother win just so she could succeed him?” she asked cuttingly. “Which are you more proud of, Moonblade, that your mother is a cheater and a fraud, or that your grandfather is a liar and a scoundrel?”

“Why you witch!” she screamed, her eyes turning flat and her fangs bared. She lunged at Summer Dawn with absolute rage in her eyes, but Summer Dawn stood her ground confidently in the doorway of her bedroom. The thestral rebounded off her shield, which flared with pink energy when she made contact with it, and she tumbled backwards across the balcony and slid into the stone railing on the far side. She got her hooves under her but didn’t stand up, shaking her head woozily.

“Did I hit a nerve?” Summer Dawn mocked. “You knew, didn’t you? You knew what your grandfather and mother did, and you didn’t say anything.” She gasped reflexively as an epiphany hit her, taking a step back in surprise, as if she startled herself with her own revelation. “That’s why you’re here,” she realized with a surprised look at her. “That’s the real reason you’re here! You need a boogey pony to distract the other thestrals from your mother’s scheme, so you’re going after Star to conceal the fact that your mother and grandfather conspired to pass down the throne. You need a villain to unite the thestrals behind your mother, and there’s no bigger villain in thestral folklore than a Lykan. You want to parade Star’s head all over the kingdom to show the thestrals how your mother saved the Nightlands from the evil Lykan, so they don’t think too much about how she came to sit on the throne. And if you fail, then you’ll have a war with Equestria to serve as a backup, uniting the thestrals against a common enemy. Us. Either way, it lets your mother tighten her grip on the throne, either with the adulation of the thestrals for saving them from the biggest villain in your legends or with their patriotism.”

“Shut up!” she snapped from the floor, unsteadily getting back onto her hooves.

“So, that’s what this is all about?” she asked, almost disbelievingly. “You’re here to kill Starjumper, and you’re doing it to keep your mother from losing her throne. Admit it. Your mother gave you orders to kill Starjumper, no matter what it took, even if it started a war with Equestria. Didn’t she?” When the thestral said nothing, just glared murderously at her, Summer Dawn raised her head and took on a calm expression. “She did. Did she tell you her whole plan, too? Did you come here to kill Star in cold blood, knowing it was all about your mother keeping her throne? Were you going to kill an innocent pony just to keep your title, Moonblade?” she asked in a powerful voice.

Princess Twilight suddenly landed heavily on the balcony, her descent and landing so strong that a gust of wind pushed the snow away from her hooves when they hit the stone. “Is this how you honor your word, Moonblade?” she snapped. “Sneaking off the moment I’m busy preparing the raise the sun? I guess from here out, I’ll have a full detachment of the Royal Guard escort you everywhere you go!” She looked over at Summer Dawn, her eyes narrowing slightly when she saw the shield. “Did you attack one of my subjects, Moonblade?” she asked in a dangerous voice.

“It wasn’t anything I couldn’t handle, your Highness,” Summer Dawn said confidently. “I got a little too close to the truth for her to accept. I know why she’s here in Equestria. I know what she’s doing.”

“Shut up!” Moonblade snapped, jerking her wings out. “You’re wrong!”

“Summer, come to the palace. Wait for me in the throne room while I take Moonblade here back to her room. And lock her inside,” Princess Twilight said hotly. “We’ll talk about what happened here after I raise the sun.”

“No! You won’t get away with your insults, unicorn!” Moonblade said in a vicious voice, her lips snarled back to expose her fangs, some kind of primal threat display. “You insulted my mother, my family, my kingdom, and my entire race!”

“I told the truth,” Summer Dawn shot back. “And only a pony of weak character can be insulted by the truth! That’s why it makes you so mad, because you know I know! Admit it!”

Moonblade hissed at her, a sound that sounded almost un-pony.

“What is going on, Summer Dawn?” the Princess asked.

She looked up at the alicorn unblinkingly. “Move Starjumper, Princess. Get him completely out of Canterlot, then put him someplace that a thestral can’t possibly hope to get to him, and keep him there until you’re absolutely sure that Moonblade and her guards are completely out of Equestria. If you don’t keep your eyes on them, they’ll just turn around and come back,” she said. “Moonblade was sent here to kill him. It’s the only reason she’s here. The only reason she didn’t do it that first day was because she honestly wasn’t expecting to catch him out in the open like that, and she knew what would happen to her mother if she broke the treaty. She didn’t have a chance to void the treaty before you got there. Now she’s trying to find Star, and she won’t make that mistake again. The instant she knows where he is, she’ll void the treaty on the spot and try to kill him before you can stop her.”

Moonblade looked almost ready to lunge across the balcony again, her legs trembling and her eyes almost glowing with pure rage.

“And how do you know this, Summer Dawn?”

“The way she reacted when I brought up how her mother took the throne from her father,” she answered. “The thestrals suspect that her grandfather and mother cheated the system, I overheard Starjumper’s mother tell him that when she came to visit him. She heard about it in a letter she got from somepony in the Nightlands. The thestrals openly suspect that the Night Queen took the throne by cheating, and her mother sees that as a direct threat to her rule. But she can’t respond to it by throwing ponies in the dungeon or anything, it would just make her look like a tyrant and steel the thestrals against her that much more. So, she sent Moonblade to kill Starjumper so the thestrals back in the Nightlands would heap praise on her mother for saving them from the Lykan, making them forget how she took the throne by making her look like she deserves to sit on it. And if the plot to kill Star fails, then the war it would spark between the Nightlands and Equestria would serve the same purpose. The thestrals would be too busy fighting against Equestria to question the validity of the Night Queen’s rule. Either way, it distracts the thestrals from the truth and consolidates her mother’s grip on the throne.”

Princess Twilight gave her a long look, then her eyes just seemed to light up, and she gave her a look of, of pride. “Summer Dawn, you are an absolute treasure,” she said. “I suspected Moonblade was here to kill Starjumper, but I could not figure out what her motive was. I couldn’t see why she would be here to do it, given what kind of a precarious position it would put the Nightlands in. It just didn’t make sense. But I didn’t know about how the thestrals suspected that the Night Queen cheated to take the throne. That puts everything together! You’re as smart as you are talented!”

She blushed modestly. “It was nothing,” she said demurely.

“You’re lying! My mother would never do such a thing!” Moonblade screamed, almost hysterically.

“You didn’t know,” Summer Dawn gasped, giving her a surprised look. “You didn’t know that your mother is using you!”

“My mother is the Night Queen!” she absolutely thundered “And I am her loyal Moonblade!” She turned and lunged over the rail, her wings unfurling, and she flew towards the palace, her body melting into the late night.

“Moonblade! Stop!” Princess Twilight shouted, then glanced at Summer Dawn. “Come to the palace. I need to stop that thestral before she does something crazy.”

“I’ll be there after I warn Star,” she said quickly. “I’m going to tell him to go somewhere, Princess, somewhere not Canterlot.”

“Spike,” she said quickly. “Send him to Spike! Do you know where I’m talking about?”

“I know,” she nodded.

“Tell him to go there, and don’t tell anypony else!”

“I will! Thank you, your Highness!” she said as she closed the balcony doors with her magic, then rose up off the floor by her magic. “I’ll make sure Star leaves as soon as you raise the sun. And I’ll be at the palace as soon as I can!”

“Be careful!” she warned, then her horn surged and she vanished in a circular burst of purple magic.

She so needed to learn that spell!

She floated over the buildings of Canterlot in the icy pre-dawn, her mind racing. She couldn’t believe that she figured all that out, but it made sense! Everything fit together perfectly, it explained why Moonblade was here, explained why they did what they did, it explained everything. She was absolutely sure she was right, so sure that she was breaking Starjumper’s orders to warn him. He had to get out of Canterlot, and he had to do it right now. He wasn’t safe anywhere in this city so long as Moonblade was here, because she was here for the sole purpose of killing him. The Princess had ordered her to tell him to go to Ponyville, to her palace there, where Spike was taking care of it while Princess Twilight was standing in for Princess Celestia. She’d met the little dragon on their trip there, he’d conducted the tour of the Castle of Friendship, and she thought he was very nice.

In the distance, she heard a horn blow, then several bright magical lights began to glow along the tops of the towers of the Royal Palace, lighting up that whole side of the city. Princess Twilight must have gotten back and warned the Royal Guard and Princess Starlight, so they were no doubt locking the Night Blades in their rooms and hunting down Moonblade. There was no doubt in Summer Dawn’s mind she went back to get her armor, to get that spell dampener, the only defense she’d have against the Princesses if they tried to stop her with magic. If Princess Twilight was lucky, she intercepted Moonblade after she returned to the palace but before she got back to her room. She floated above the Promenade and saw townsponies looking out of their doors and windows in the pre-dawn, looking towards the palace and no doubt wondering what was going on.

It happened so quickly she had no idea what was going on. One second she was hurrying towards the apartment as fast as her magic would safely carry her, the next she was laying on a rooftop, her mind swimming in a haze of pain and confusion as a dark shape loomed over her. She couldn’t think, she couldn’t focus, could only feel icy pain on her back and side, then a cold flash and all the breath blasted out of her lungs. “Where is he!” she heard a voice scream, a voice that some part of her swimming brain told her she should recognize. “Tell me! Tell me now!”

Her eyes started working enough for her to focus on a dark shape looming over her, a mare with a dark blue coat and leathery wings. Baleful yellow eyes glared down at her, and bared fangs flashed in the last of the moonlight. It was…somepony? Was she supposed to know who she was? She was. This pony was known to her…but who? Why was this pony standing over her? And why did she hurt? She gasped and struggled feebly when her hoof pressed down on her neck, cutting off her air. She tried to wrest the hoof away, but her front hooves didn’t seem to want to work right, all they did was jerk spasmodically. “Phaugh, I hit you too hard!” she head the mare snap, the hoof pulling away. She took in a ragged, deep breath, tried to roll onto her hooves, but her body didn’t seem to want to do what her brain told it to do. Her back leg was twitching violently, and her tail thrashed like a dying snake. There was a strange sound, like a horn, loud enough to shake through the wool clouding her awareness.

The mare vanished in a dark blur. There was a strange sound, she didn’t know what it was, then another face took her place in her swimming vision. It was another face with yellow eyes, another face she knew but couldn’t recognize, but…but this face calmed her. The face leaned down, and then everything around her began to rush by, and she could feel cold air biting against her back. Who was it? Why was the world moving? Why was her back cold?

She blinked as the cold lanced some awareness back into her. She was…she was in the air. She was flying. How was she flying? She turned her head weakly and saw the neck and underside of the chin of a stallion, a stallion with a dark gray coat and nearly black mane cropped short. A hint of a yellow eye peeked around his cheek as he glanced towards her.

It was…it was Starjumper!

Flying…he was a thestral! She lolled her head back and saw the thestral mare chasing them, a look of rage twisted across her face. The city of Canterlot raced by under them as Starjumper’s large, leathery wings worked against the biting air, the rooosh rooosh roosh sound of them beating against the cold winter air vibrating in her ears as they kept them aloft. The mare…she was gaining on them. Starjumper was carrying her, he was weighed down and she wasn’t.

“St-Star,” she said woozily. “What happened?”

“You’ll have to tell me,” he answered, his voice tight and controlled. She felt her body whip to the side as they turned hard, felt pain where his front legs were gripping her, and another thestral shot by her vision. This one was wearing that black armor, and the glint of the moonlight off one of the blades over his wings made her realize what just happened.

That thestral…he tried to kill them!

“They’ve cut me off from the palace,” he said in a focused voice, and she felt herself being whipped to the side again when he turned hard. She heard the sound of hooves hitting metal, and there was a cry of pain. Something hot hit her face, making her flinch, and the movement of her head showed her another of those armored thestrals tumbling towards the city below, out of control. He hit the roof of a rowhouse and smashed through the tiles, vanishing into the darkness below as if the rowhouse ate him. “I can’t put you down gently,” he warned as her stomach rose into her throat. They were falling towards the ground! “Get ready!”

He pulled up just before he hit the ground, and she found the ground and sky trading places wildly. He’d let her go as he pulled up, and she was tumbling across the cobblestones of the street! She slid to a stop in a snow bank, plowing deeply into it, and the sudden wet cold all around her snapped her out of her daze. She staggered to her hooves and jerked forward, getting out of the snow, shaking her head violently. She felt several aches and pains, scrapes and bruises from him sliding her across the street like a bowling ball, but it was of no moment. She looked up quickly to see five thestrals chasing him, four of them wearing armor and the fifth Moonblade, while three more flew parallel to them, keeping themselves between him and the Royal Palace. That was the only safe place he could go, and they were doing everything they could to keep him from reaching it.

Why was he outside? Did they find him? Did they force him out of his apartment? She gasped when one of the armored thestrals turned away and then swerved towards him, and Starjumper twisted just enough to avoid the extended blade attached to his wing…but not completely. Even from there, she could see a line of blood fly away from the blade as the tip of it slashed across his side and left flank, cutting through his cutie mark.

They were hurting him!

A sudden fury roared up into her, and it seemed to stop time. Everything seemed to slow down as her fury focused her mind like a razor’s edge, as she saw the six thestrals weaving through the air above her like they were in slow motion, like paper puppets hanging from strings stretching into the sky. She had to do something…she could do something! She knew what to do! Her horn blazed with magic, and the snow bank behind her was enshrouded by her magic and lifted up, packed, condensed into a huge ball of heavy snow. She remembered what Starjumper said. She remembered! She watched the figures above move, weave, shift and turn, and found her opening. She rose up off her front hooves, then slammed them down to the street with a cry of effort, and the giant snowball rocketed up towards the thestrals. It seemingly thundered straight at Starjumper, his head turned away so he didn’t see it coming, but he turned out of its path just as she predicted, and three of the thestrals chasing him turned right into it.

The massive snowball slashed through the six thestrals, and when it hurtled away, two of the thestrals chasing Starjumper went with it. The third had seen it coming at the last second and managed to dive out of the way, but the move made him fall back away from Starjumper, made him lose speed and lose position, forcing him to turn and try to catch up as the others surged ahead. Her magic surrounded her and lifted her up, then she looked down and pulled up a table from a nearby sidewalk café with her, rising up towards them. She used her magic to go as fast as she could, but she was nowhere near fast as the thestrals she chased. She winced and gave a cry of compassion when she saw Starjumper get hurt again, a thestral’s blade slashing across his front leg. The thestral paid for it when Starjumper got a hoof on him and yanked, clinging to him and pulling him out of his path, then he swerved upwards, turned and flipped over, and then planted both his back hooves in the back of the thestral’s helmeted head with a devastating kick, knocking him down towards the ground with his helmet flying off his head. The thestral spun towards the ground, clearly out cold, then hit the roof of a boutique, bounced off and out over the street, then crashed through the second story window of the building opposite.

Summer Dawn didn’t give the last two a chance to press as Star banked away, blood flowing from several wounds, She brought the table around, then launched it at the last armored thestral. He saw it coming and swerved out of its path, but it made him lose speed as Starjumper pulled away with Moonblade right on his tail. The armored thestral looked in her direction, then he turned towards her, his face twisted up in a fang-baring snarl.

All she could see was the edges of those blades on his wings as they came right for her throat. Her eyes widened and she lost her focus, but then Starjumper came out of nowhere and crashed into the thestral, driving him to the side, and the two of them flashed by her. She saw Moonblade coming right at her, but she had the presence of mind to realize that she didn’t have her armor, and that meant she had no spell dampener. A spherical shield shimmered into existence around her, but Moonblade ignored her, went right by her as she chased after Starjumper.

Where were the guards? Where were the Princesses? Why weren’t they helping? Starjumper was outnumbered and he was injured!

Starjumper banked back around, but the two thestrals she’d hit with the snowball came up over a building, and she screamed when both of them crashed into him with their wingblades leading. Star tumbled out of the air, blood flying from a wound in his shoulder and one of his wings fluttering like a flag on a windy day, clearly badly broken. He crashed into the Promenade and tumbled across the snow-covered stones, then slid to a stop in an intersection. He wasn’t moving.

He wasn’t moving!

The thestrals dove at him, but Summer Dawn was closer. She landed literally standing over him, his body between her front and back hooves, and she channeled all her magic, all her strength, and formed a shimmering globe of magical energy around them.

The four remaining thestrals landed in each direction, blocking any path of retreat, with Moonblade right in front of her. “Stand aside,” she ordered.

“No!” Summer Dawn shouted.

“Foolish filly, stand aside or you’ll share his fate! That shield won’t stop us!”

“This isn’t a shield!” she screamed, then she closed her eyes tightly against what was coming and unleashed her spell. The energy around her wasn’t as shield, it was a light spell formed into a shield’s spell matrix, the practice spell that Starjumper taught her so she could create mathematically correct arcs. And since she charged so much energy into the spell and then released it all at once, the shield suddenly blazed brighter than a hundred suns, searing away the dark pre-dawn, shattering the shadows, and that incandescent light burned into the eyes of the night-sighted thestrals like the hottest fire ever. The four thestrals cried out in pain as they flinched violently against that nova of overwhelming light, and when Summer Dawn opened her eyes, brilliant spots dancing in her vision from the effects of her own spell, she saw Moonblade staggering around, a hoof over her eyes.

She remembered what Starjumper said about spell dampeners, that they only stopped active magic that made direct contact with them. They did nothing to stop the effects of magic!

While the thestrals were blinded and stunned, she picked up Starjumper’s body with her magic, then turned and galloped down the Promenade. She could run faster than she could float, and right now getting as far away from those thestrals as possible before they recovered was what mattered. It was hard to see her destination through the spots swimming in her vision, but she could make out the spires of the Royal Palace enough to run towards them, going as fast as she could go while carrying her friend’s wounded, bleeding body, keeping the indistinct, shadowy shapes of the buildings to the sides of her spotty vision. The stones of the street. Listen to the stones under her hooves. The sidewalks had a different sound, if she heard a change in the sound of her hooves on the stone, she was drifting too far from the middle of the Promenade.

A shadowy shape streaked through her light-blinded vision, and—

Nothing.

The impact with the ground tore him out of unthinking darkness.

He had no idea where he was. He had no idea what happened. He became aware again when he hit the ground heavily, as a white-hot lance of pain ripped through his left side as he rolled over his broken wing. That shocked him back to consciousness, and he was only dimly aware that he was rolling across the snow-dappled street when he slid to a stop.

He opened his eyes, his vision blurry but quickly focusing. He was laying on the Promenade not far from the grand plaza, and a movement to his right pulled his attention. He saw Summer Dawn in the air, her body flipping violently from something, then she went over the low fence of the Corner Café and crashed into one of the tables, snapping the umbrella off and then crashing through the window behind it. The sound of shattering glass masked the sound of her hitting the floor inside, and he saw her slide through two tables and come to a stop, unmoving.

Her blood was on the cobblestones in front of him.

Struggling to his hooves, he became aware of what happened to her. The three thestrals that had been blocking him from the palace were landing around him, surrounding him, and a fourth, the one that had hit Summer Dawn, was circling around to land as well.

He was in much worse shape. His front left and back right legs were injured, his front leg couldn’t support his weight at all, his left wing was hanging by his side and he couldn’t feel anything from it, and he could feel the deceptive warmth of blood flowing from several wounds. But was most concerning was the fact that every exhale also expelled blood in addition to air, a thin but steady stream that flowed out of his mouth and flowed down his neck, dripped from his chin to the snowy street below. It was also getting harder and harder to breathe, as if something was wrapped around his chest and was tightening with every breath. He was badly injured inside, probably from whatever had broken his wing, and he didn’t have much time before the bleeding inside compressed his lungs and suffocated him, or he drowned in his own blood. Neither was very appealing.

He knew he was already dead. The wounds he’d suffered were fatal, his body just hadn’t accepted it yet.

So, this was it, he reasoned to himself as he staggered to the side, keeping an eye on the thestral behind him. He was outnumbered, he was mortally wounded, and he was surrounded. This was it. This was the honor of the thestrals, voiding the treaty and attacking Summer Dawn to draw him out, then attacking him eight against one. They had no interest in a fight. All they wanted was a slaughter.

Cowards.

At least there was one thestral on that street. Baring his bloodstained fangs, narrowing his eyes, he squared off against the pony in front of him, one of Starlight’s Royal Guard no less, still wearing his EUP armor. Starjumper knew that he was going to die. That was a fact, and he could accept it. What mattered now was taking the one that caused all this with him beyond the gray veil before it happened.

Moonblade.

His only regret that was Summer Dawn had paid in the worst way because of him. She may be dying in that café, she may already be dead, and there was nothing he could do about it. He had brought terrible pain and harm to the only friend he had, and all because of what he was.

It had been a mistake. He should have never told her the truth. His childish need for a friend may have gotten her killed.

And it had also killed him.

The four of them held their positions for a short moment, long enough for Moonblade to land on the street behind the Royal Guard. Her eyes were flat, her expression almost zealous in its determination. “It’s over, Lykan,” she stated, advancing up in front of the Royal Guard.

“Then come and get me, coward,” he answered. He coughed violently, and that made him stagger, but he recovered himself, spitting out more blood. He looked past Moonblade, past the traitor guard, and saw the moon set.

He’d lost track of time. If the moon was setting, then—

He gave a low, nearly uncaring laugh, dark with irony and wet with blood as it dribbled from his mouth and to the street below. “This is where it ends, Moonblade,” he said, standing fully erect and spreading out his right wing, preparing. “The Gray Mare comes for both of us.”

The thestral gave him a strange look, then turned and looked behind herself. He heard her gasp, whipping her head around. “Kill him now!” she screamed, almost in a frenzy, then she lunged forward.

It was too late. Behind the mountain, the sun crested the horizon, and the instant it did, Starjumper felt its light burn through all, burn into his soul. His wings, both broken and unbroken, shuddered and turned black, smoke hissing from them, and then they crumbled into ash. The tufts on his ears burned away as a bulge rose in his forehead, above and between his eyes, then his blood-smeared horn tore through skin and flesh, twisting as it grew to form that distinctive spiral, growing out to its full length in the flutter of a heartbeat.

And before it had even fully finished growing, Starjumper connected with the core of his unicorn heritage, calling forth the magic. And it responded. His shivering horn blazed with golden light as blood slid down his muzzle to join the line coming from the corner of his mouth, coming out of his mouth in a steady stream, then the magic around his horn turned into fire. Snapping his head up to its full erect position, holding his lamed front leg off the street, the fire burning on his horn exploded outward in a rapidly expanding ring of intense flame. Moonblade screamed and snapped her wings, vaulting her up into the air, but the expanding ring of flame struck the bound tip of her long tail and set fire to it. The Royal Guard, however, didn’t react in time, and he screamed in terror and turned away to shield his face as the ring of fire enveloped him, then he collapsed to the ground, writhing in agony as smoke and steam wafted up from his flash-heated armor as the snow on the street cooled the metal, melting and evaporating the snow. The umbrellas and wooden segments of the buildings abutting the intersection burst into flames as the ring of fire splashed against them.

The other guards, protected by their dampeners, charged towards him with their wingblades ready to plunge into him, their wings pulled forward, but he ignored them as they galloped at him. He turned his head to track Moonblade, his horn still blazing with magic, and then a bolt of pure magical energy raged from it, blasted across the distance separating them, then struck her fully in the chest. She was slammed backwards by that massive force, was driven across the street, then was bashed into the side of the building, where she rebounded off of it with glazed eyes and collapsed to the street. He started hobbling towards her slowly, implacably, as the thestrals behind and to the sides of him charged closer and closer. All three lunged at him almost in unison, each of them so intent on him that they didn’t realize that the others were coming.

A split second before the first tip of a wingblade touched him, Starjumper disappeared in a circular burst of shimmering golden energy.

The three thestrals collided with each other, one screamed as a wingblade drove into his shoulder, and they crashed to the street in a tumble of kicking legs and thrashing wings. One of them, looking up, screamed in sudden fear when there was a large burst of golden light over their heads, then a stone park bench appeared in the air over them, gravity asserted itself, and it smashed all three of them as it impacted, the bench cracking into pieces from the force of the impact. The three thestrals laid in that heap, groaning and feebly trying to get free of each other through the pain of broken bones.

Four more thestrals, two Night Blades and two Royal Guards, landed in front of him, cutting him off from his quarry. The two Royal Guards vanished in simultaneous circular bursts of golden magic as he teleported them onto the grounds of the Royal Palace, then he unleashed another pure blast of magic at the cobblestones in front of the two Night Blades. Shards of stone blew out from the impact, flying right into the faces of the two, causing them to cry out and stagger back as they flinched to protect their eyes and faces from the shower of cutting, piercing shrapnel. That kept them motionless and distracted long enough for him to deal with them. He teleported a large volume of water around their legs, and before the water could even splash out to the ground, his magic captured it and twisted it into a shape, pulling it up around the thestrals to form a solid dome of water nearly half a foot thick. A pale blue beam lanced from his horn and struck it as he held it in place, and it froze the entire volume of water solid almost instantly, trapping them inside. The two of them hammered their armored hooves against the ice wall of their frozen cell as Starjumper vanished from in front of them and reappeared standing over Moonblade. She looked up at him owlishly, then her eyes seemed to focus.

“I’m already dead,” he said, blood dripping from his mouth as it bubbled out of him with every exhale, feeling the icy cold starting to spread through him as the injuries nopony could see began to take their toll “But I have enough time to make sure you go with me. Let’s see what’s beyond the gray veil together,” he said in a savage hiss, his horn flaring with golden light and yanking her up off the ground, then pushing her up against the wall behind her. He reared up on his back legs, nearly falling to the side when his injured leg almost buckled under him, but he managed to get his good foreleg hoof on the wall by her and lean in, pressing his broken chest against hers and getting almost nose to nose with her. “The Gray Mare comes,” he said in Thestralla, his voice a gurgling hiss as gray haze started to dim his vision. But he had enough presence of mind to reach back behind him with his magic, pulling one of the wingblades free of the unconscious thestral laying amid the ruins of the shattered bench, then he turned it and launched it right at his own unprotected back.

There was no pain. He barely registered it when the blade struck him, impaled him. It was nearly a relief as the blood building up inside him, compressing his lungs, suddenly had somewhere to go, and that let him take a final unimpeded breath. But the sudden widening of Moonblade’s eyes and the opening of her mouth, a single barely audible sound coming from her, told him that it had gone completely through him and driven into her chest. She felt the same icy cold he did, heard the hoofsteps of the Gray Mare as she came for both of them.

The gray haze took his vision. It drained all sound from the world, all sensation leaving him, and then it took his consciousness.

Slumping to the side, the bloodstained wingblade rasping as it scraped against bone as it pulled out of Moonblade’s chest, Starjumper collapsed to the street, falling into snow stained with blood. Moonblade stayed up on her back hooves, leaning against the wall behind her as her lifeblood poured from the hole in her chest, then her legs gave and she slumped down to her rump. She gave a single sigh, almost a sigh of relief, and then she slumped to the side and fell to the snow-covered stone.

“Dear Celestia!” Princess Twilight gasped as she landed in the intersection, looking in a bit of horror at the blade completely through Starjumper’s body. She’d seen what he did, seen him use his magic to drive the blade into his own back. Why? Why would he do such a thing? Why would he kill himself that way? She galloped up to them and slid to a stop, saw that both Starjumper and Moonblade were still breathing, but even she could tell that they had moments only, maybe even mere seconds, before it was over.

This was not how this was supposed to happen! Celestia told her to hold back long enough for Starjumper and Moonblade to connect, for her to fulfill her destiny as the Dusk Violet and join with him to form the Trinity, but not this! Not like this! Starjumper hadn’t joined with her as the prophecy predicted, he’d very nearly killed her! And in so doing, he’d killed himself!

Could they have been wrong? Could Starjumper not be the Child of Sun and Moon? Could Summer Dawn not be the Morning Rose? And if that was true, then weren’t the two lives ending before her eyes her responsibility?

The shame was almost crushing, but there would be time for blaming herself later. Right now, Starjumper and Moonblade were dying, they only had heartbeats left, if she did not act swiftly. She took a single step back and her horn erupted with intense, brilliant magic, a shimmering purple globe over the tip that expanded, then she lowered her head and released her spell. A dome of magical energy formed over the two of them, and within that dome of magic, time stopped. Both of them were trapped between the ticks of the clock, suspended in a single instant in time in which they were both still alive.

“Starlight!” she called, her voice tight and emotional. Her friend advanced up and gave the dome a single look.

“Did you get it up in time?”

“Yes,” she said. “Can you get everything ready? When the spell comes down, they may not have more than a few seconds.”

“That’s more than enough,” she said confidently. “I’ll bring both the potions. We may need them.”

She nodded, silently praying that Zecora’s potion brewing skills were still unmatched in Equestria. The two potions in the palace vault were the most rare and most powerful she had ever produced, potions that would cause rapid magical healing when applied to a wounded pony. They wouldn’t heal the two ponies before her completely, but they would heal them enough to save their lives.

“Your Highness, over here!” one of her guards called as Starlight vanished in a circular burst of blue magic. Twilight trotted over to the guard, then saw two other guards tending a pony inside a diner. A glimpse of a white coat and pink hair made her gasp, then she teleported directly into the diner and beside the two pegasi.

It was Summer Dawn!

She was unconscious, one of her forelegs was twisted at an unnatural angle, and she was bleeding from a deep cut in her temple, staining her long pink mane. How did she get tangled up in this? She’d told the mare to report to the palace!

“Ohhhh, no,” she said in both fear and dismay. The thestrals had attacked and injured an Equestrian citizen in their attempt to kill Starjumper. That meant that this wasn’t just about the treaty anymore.

As the current ruler of Equestria, she had no choice. She couldn’t allow this to go unanswered.

“Get her to the hospital,” she ordered her guard. “Make sure to use a stretcher, we don’t know how badly she’s hurt.”

“At once, your Highness,” the guard answered.

She supervised as the pegasus guards carefully and gently loaded Summer Dawn onto a stretcher, then they flew off with her, heading for the hospital on the other side of town. She then went back to the dome of stopped time and looked through it, taking in the brutal scene, then sighed and looked to the side when the captain of the guard, Flash Sentry, landed beside her. “Did you arrest the thestral detachment?” she asked.

“Yes, your Highness,” he answered, his voice almost vibrating with outrage. “A couple of them are going to be in the hospital for a while, though.”

She blew out her breath. “The ones that didn’t take part in the attack are banished from Equestria, Flash,” she ordered. “I want you to make sure they’re on the next boat to the eastern kingdoms that leaves from Manehattan.”

“And the ones that did?”

“They’ll stand trial for attempted murder,” she answered, looking at the blade impaled through Starjumper’s body, which he had done to himself in some insane attempt to kill Moonblade. She couldn’t fathom any scenario where he’d have to do that, not with the kind of magic he was capable of using. If he wanted to kill Moonblade, he could have done it with a single spell. He could have killed them all for that matter, and done it easily, which showed that he’d shown tremendous restraint and mercy in sparing the other thestrals. All it would have taken was teleporting a giant boulder on top of them instead of what looked like a bench from the Overlook Park, something that would have crushed them flat instead of merely breaking a few bones.

That meant that he did it on purpose, he impaled that blade through his back with the full intent of dying along with her.

But…why?

She blinked. Was this what the prophecy foresaw? Was Starjumper’s suicidal act the catalyst that would somehow bring Moonblade over to his side? After all, she was a thestral. She was from a very different culture than Equestria, a much more martial society were bravery and courage were honored and revered. To a thestral, Starjumper’s willingness to kill himself to take his enemy with him would be seen as…heroic.

It made her shiver. Would she ever have the courage to do something like that to herself? Would she be willing to make that kind of a sacrifice? Or was it a simple act of complete madness?

Then there was Moonblade herself. Twilight had no doubt that this attack was spurred on by Summer Dawn’s accusation. She’d heard it in Moonblade’s voice just before she flew off, she was certain that it had struck Moonblade to the core, had threatened to shake her entire world down. Summer Dawn’s logic was powerful, and something in it had resonated within Moonblade even as she raged against it. Somewhere, deep inside, Twilight suspected, Moonblade knew that Summer Dawn was right. She knew that her grandfather and mother had conspired to circumvent thestral law and tradition, the other thestrals saw through it as the flimsy charade it was, and her mission here was to kill Starjumper to consolidate her mother’s hold on the throne by giving the thestrals of the Nightlands something to rally around, a great victory for the new Night Queen to prove to her subjects that she was legitimate. And while Moonblade was a patriot to her kingdom, she was also loyal to her mother, and those two duties had torn her apart when they came into direct conflict with each other.

Summer Dawn…she must have attacked Summer Dawn to lure Starjumper out, and it had worked. She was the only thing in Canterlot he would fight to protect. Moonblade must have realized that, and used the young unicorn to draw Starjumper out of hiding.

Still, to see it locked in time that way, to see two ponies on death’s door, to see death frozen in time…it was no doubt going to give her nightmares. She was certain that Luna was going to be visiting her dreams tonight to bring quiet and peace to her troubled mind.

“Twilight?” Flash asked in concern.

“I’m fine,” she replied, shaking her head a little bit. “I’m just…I’m fine.”

He raised a foreleg and patted her on the shoulder gently. “I know how you feel,” he said with compassion. “You realize that the townsponies saw what happened here. It’s going to get out.” He looked up and to the side, and she followed his gaze to see several unicorns looking down from the upstairs windows over the diner, where the proprietor and her family lived. No doubt, they had seen everything. And Canterlot being Canterlot, no doubt everypony in town would know everything by lunchtime.

“I’ll think of something,” she said, not very confidently.

Starlight appeared in a circular burst of blue magic, with two narrow, tall crystal vials floating in her magic behind and to the left of her head. “I have both of them, Twi,” she called as she stepped over. “Do you want to apply them?”

“You’re better with time magic than me, Starlight, you apply the potions.”

“Alright. I’ll deal with the blade first.”

“No, we have to leave it where it is,” Twilight warned. “The potion isn’t instant, Starlight. The blade’s the only thing that will keep him from bleeding to death before the potion can take effect.”

“Alright,” she said, advancing up. She took one of the potions and slowly lowered it into the dome of stopped time, using her magic to allow the vial to move within the field. She then poured the thick, viscous clear liquid within the vial on Starjumper’s visible wounds, using her magic to spread it out over them. The liquid was locked in time like the rest of him, unable to take effect, but Starlight showed her mastery of time magic by allowing the liquid to be moved, not frozen in time, even while the liquid’s magical effect was. She smeared the liquid over several wounds, then used her magic to funnel the liquid into the ghastly wound around the blade sticking out of his back, coating the blade itself with the powerful healing potion. She ended up emptying the entire vial on Starjumper, which represented a staggering cost of both materials and time—it had taken Zecora six months to make that potion!—then she opened the second vial and carefully lowered it into the dome of stopped time. She applied only a small amount to Moonblade’s chest, the wound caused by the wingblade impaled through Starjumper’s body, making sure to inject the thick liquid into the deep wound, not merely to cover over the surface.

“Alright, it’s done,” Starlight announced as she removed the vial from the dome. “Are you ready?”

She nodded. “Starlight, hold Starjumper down with your magic, he’s going to convulse. When we see the wounds start to heal, that’s when I’ll pull out the blade.”

“Got it,” she nodded, her horn limning over with blue energy. Inside the dome, the stallion’s body was surrounded by an soft blue aura, the color of Starlight’s magic. “Ready.”

“In one. Two. Three!”

The dome shimmered and vanished, and time was restored. Starjumper shuddered within Starlight’s magic as the potion started to take effect, and Moonblade took a deep, gasping breath and tried to sit up with almost shocking speed, her eyes as wide open as they could possibly go and her lips pulling back tightly, baring her fangs, as she grimaced. Twilight wasn’t paying as much attention to her as to Starjumper, and when she saw the ugly wound on his left shoulder start to close, she wrapped her magic around the end of the blade stuck out of his back, took a deep bracing breath, then yanked it out. She pulled it straight back quickly and steadily, and his body shuddered again when the blade was pulled free of him. Blood spurted from both wounds when the blade was removed, then the wounds in his skin and coat began to seal over as the potion did its work. His shuddering and jerking within her magic eased, then he gave a sigh and relaxed, soothed by the healing effect of the potion that was doing its work. Moonblade too flopped back onto the snow and seemed to give a long sigh, her body relaxing, but her eyes were open and she was looking up at the two Princesses with confusion in her eyes.

“Are you proud of yourself, Moonblade?” Twilight asked strongly, looking down at her. “Do you have any idea what you’ve just done? Do you have any idea how much damage you’ve done to both Equestria and the Nightlands?”

“My name…is Moonshade,” was all she said, barely a whisper, then she closed her eyes as tears spread across her closed eyelids.

It was known as the Cathedral of Eternal Night.

For over a thousand years, the black stone fortress had set at the peak of Claw Mountain, the highest peak of the Nightlands, a peak so high the snow piled against the outer walls of the large fortress did not melt in the summer. It was a place of thin air and ever-present cold, but given it rested at the top of a nearly unclimbable mountain made it the most defensible place in the kingdom. It was a place where the sunlight did not reach, swallowed up by the powerful magic of the Night Stone that turned the fortress and the peak around it into a realm of dark shadows, too dark for non-thestrals to see easily. And there was no other place that the thestrals would keep their most treasured relic.

Over three hundred rulers had sat upon the Black Throne in the cavernous throne room of the Cathedral over the centuries the fortress had stood, a long and proud line of kings and queens that had taken the throne by strength and ruled with guile and cunning to keep it. And its current occupant sat upon it with an eager smile as she heard from her Keeper of Secrets, the master of spies and collector of information critical for any kingdom to know. Whisperwing ruffled her wings a bit to fan her back, given that the throne room was usually almost stuffily warm due to the four large fireplaces that had fires burning in them almost ceaselessly to ward off the chill of the thin air. “You’re sure of it, Keeper?” she asked.

“Certain, my Queen. The treaty has been voided,” he answered. “That means that Moonblade must have found and killed the Lykan. I’ll have confirmation of that in three or four days, depending on how quickly my messenger can get here. But there’s no doubt that the treaty has been voided. The copy of it we have burst into flame and burned to ash about an hour ago.”

“Excellent,” she said with a barely contained grin. Finally, that threat was taken off her head! “That means that the safety of the Night Stone is assured.” When the Keeper gave her a long, steady look, she chuckled. “Come now, Keeper, we must keep up appearances,” she said lightly.

“I prefer dealing in truths when we stand in this room, your Majesty,” he said calmly. “With the treaty voided, the Equestrian Princess has two options. Send a diplomat to negotiate a new treaty, or consider the voiding of the treaty an act of war and respond accordingly.”

“The Equestrians? That’s the last thing they’ll ever do,” she scoffed. “All they care about is peace and friendship. I’m sure the Princess will storm around her throne room and whine for a few days, but she’ll eventually get over it and decide that it’s more important to be friends with us than be at war with us. Trust me, Keeper, we’ll see a delegation of pegasus ponies at our borders in about two weeks who will moan and bluster and complain about what we did, then leave with a new treaty that proclaims the grand friendship between the Nightlands and Equestria,” she said with mocking scorn. “Equestrian ponies are so easily manipulated.”

One of the Keeper’s thestrals rushed into the room. “Keeper, your Majesty, a message by magic from Equestria!” he said breathlessly. He set down a gem on the floor, and a shimmering illusory image of a purple-coated unicorn appeared in the air over it. It was Princess Twilight Sparkle.

“Night Queen Whisperwing, your delegation attacked and nearly killed Canterlot citizens in their failed attempt to assassinate Starjumper Astra,” she nearly sneered, her point of view slightly off from the throne due to the way the Keeper’s assistant had set down the crystal. It was more or less displaying a message that the Princess had sent by magic, nopony could interact with it, only listen to it. “Your delegation has been arrested and will stand trial for their crimes, including your daughter. The thestral detachment of the Royal Guard has been stripped of their positions and banished from Equestria. And as of this moment, Night Queen Whisperwing, Equestria officially severs all diplomatic ties with the Nightlands and enacts an embargo against all trade with your kingdom, and also with any kingdom that trades with yours.

“Effective immediately, all trade between Equestria and the eastern kingdoms has been suspended, and I’ll be sending magical messages to King Galfor and Chief Iron Quill to explain to them that the reason I’m cutting off their food is because of you. I will take no risk that Equestrian food ends up in your hooves, and that means I will not trade with any kingdom that trades with you.

“When your starving subjects rebel against you and force you from your throne, I will be happy to negotiate with your successor. But so long as you or any member of your family sits upon that throne, Whisperwing, Equestria will not negotiate and will not relent, even if it means your thestrals fall out of the sky from hunger and die on the mountainsides. You took that throne by conspiring with your father, and that means that every member of your family is now tainted by that deception in the eyes of Equestria.

“And I will tell you this right now. If the Equestrian citizens your thestrals injured in their attack on Starjumper die from those injuries, then I will answer this act of cowardice with far more than a trade embargo,” she said, her eyes narrow and her voice seething.

And the image dissolved away, leaving silence.

“Leave us,” the Keeper told his aide, who nodded and flew back down the passage from which he came. “Those were not Moonblade’s orders,” he said with a deep frown. “She was told to do nothing to inflame the situation more than what was absolutely necessary.”

“Either way, she did her job,” Whisperwing said with a dismissive little shrug. “She was there to void the treaty so we could move forward with our plan, and in that, she succeeded. Killing the Lycan was the deception to hide our true intent. Had Moonblade gone there just to void the treaty, it would have raised suspicion. But voiding it to attack the Lycan, that makes perfect sense from the Equestrian point of view,” she smiled malevolently. “But, it would have been a nice bonus.”

“And what of Moonblade?” he asked.

“What about her?” she asked with steady eyes. “She has served her purpose.”

“You will leave her to face Equestrian justice?”

“She has served her purpose,” she repeated with steady eyes.

“Very well,” the Keeper said evenly. “What reply do you wish me to send by messenger?”

“Give no reply,” she answered. “That whining little Princess does not deserve a reply.” She stepped down from her throne. “That will be all, Keeper. I need to confer with the generals over the possibility that the griffons and hippogryphs might invade. You are dismissed.”

“What of Equestria’s threat to invade?”

“They’re too cowardly to ever take military action, Keeper,” she replied easily. “And I said you are dismissed.”

He gave her a long, steady look, then bowed from his front hooves and trotted towards the same passage used by his aide. Whisperwing waited for the sound of his hooves to disappear into the distance, then she turned and went through a door behind the throne, through an anteroom, and down a long, unlit passage. It took her down into the depths of the Cathedral of Eternal Night, down into dark, dank, cold passages that were rarely traveled. She navigated those twisting passages with complete confidence, arriving at her destination.

The Chamber of the Heart.

She had to look at it as she entered. The Night Stone, hovering in midair over a black stone pedestal, slowly rotating in the air as a shimmer of black magical energy pulsated around it, a magic that throbbed and resonated in her very soul. The relic itself looked quite unremarkable, an irregular, vaguely disc-shaped piece of black volcanic stone with a large piece of obsidian at its center, the obsidian shimmering with powerful magic. It was the heart of the thestral race, the source of the magic that made them what they were.

And she also couldn’t help but look at the small, tapered piece of red crystal sitting on the pedestal under it, a thin trail of shadowy magic emanating from the Night Stone and undulating down to enter the crystal at its very tip. Behind the Night Stone stood her father, a pony who by thestral law no longer had a name. He had lost it when he lost to Whisperwing in the Challenge, and the rest of the Nightlands thought that he had been banished from the castle to live the rest of his life as a shamed beggar. They didn’t know that he was still in the castle, and that he was still an integral part of the grand plans that the two of them had for the Nightlands and the thestrals.

Plans of glory and riches, plans to conquer and rule. The thestrals were too proud, too noble to be pushed into this remote corner of the Misty Mountains, a realm where they didn’t even have enough farmland to feed themselves, and were forced to all but beg their neighbors for food. It was a humiliation that the thestrals had endured for centuries, and Whisperwing had had enough of it. No kingdom she ruled would beg. They would take what they needed, they would take what they wanted, whenever and wherever they pleased. And now they had the means by which they could claim the glory of their thestral birthright.

“How goes it, Father?” she asked.

“It progresses, daughter,” he answered, his voice damaged by the jagged scar that went across his throat. He had earned that scar taking the throne when he was a younger thestral, before she was born. “The crystal is absorbing magic faster now. I think that soon, it will awaken.” He gave a dark, torn laugh. “Finally, daughter, we have an answer to those cursed alicorns and their magic,” he spat. “Do you bring news?”

“The treaty has been voided,” she answered, “though Moonblade got a little too zealous in her attack on the Lycan. It seems she injured several Canterlot citizens. Princess Twilight looked quite miffed. It was an amusing spectacle.”

“Did she declare war?”

“She threatened to if those injured ponies die.”

“Then let us hope they expire with all due haste,” he said with a chilling smile. “What was her threat in the meantime?”

“A trade embargo against us and all who trade with us. And it seems that she won’t lift it until our family is out of this castle.”

“She does our work for us, daughter,” he said with a satisfied nod. “When will Moonshade return?”

“She won’t. She was captured by the Equestrians and they’re going to put her on trial,” she replied.

“Excellent. I do hate killing my grandchildren,” he said casually. “She lacks vision. She would have opposed us when she finds out our true objective. Such a disappointment,” he sighed. “But at least she served as a competent disposable asset. Is Blackblade ready to assume the post of Moonblade?”

“He’s already on his way here from our southern holding,” she answered.

“Then things go according to plan, daughter,” he said with a nod, looking down at the tapered, slightly curved red crystal, broken at its base yet able to sit upright on the pedestal and tapering up a point. He gave a dark, chilling smile as the slightly curved crystal absorbed the magic of the Night Stone.

A piece of crystal shaped like a slightly curved unicorn’s horn.

Mending

He thought that death wasn’t supposed to involve pain.

He climbed back out of a dark pit of unknowing blackness first to his nose, smelling that he was in a clean, warm room that had several unknown scents, but also two that he knew. Princess Twilight had been in the room, as had Summer Dawn. But there were six other scents that he did not know, four unicorn, one earth pony, and one pegasus, and all but two were fairly old. Two unknown unicorns had been in the room very recently, but the rest had not been. The room itself was warm and enclosed, with no smell of outside reaching it, smelling of tile and cotton and rich oak wood. As he puzzled over these alien smells, he became dimly aware of both his ears and his eyes. The room was quiet, strangely so, and it was well lit.

And just the effort of paying attention to his senses had been enough to exhaust him to the point where he tumbled back into oblivion.

He awakened again, how much later he didn’t know, to a different texture of scents in the room. It was still warm, well lit, and quiet, but the smell of Summer Dawn was strong in the room, and now he could smell familiar and welcome scents, the scents of his parents and his siblings. His family had been in the room, and they had been there very recently, within the hour. He struggled to remember how his body worked, but eventually, he worked out how to open his eyes.

He was laying on his side in a large bed. A blanket covered him, and he could feel bandages wrapped around his chest and his wing. His broken wing was completely immobilized, he could feel something tied to the wing spikes of his broken wing to keep it from moving. It had to be night outside, because his wings were out, and the dull throbbing ache in his left wing reminded him that it had been shattered in the same blow that had delivered the mortal wound that ultimate should have killed him.

It took him a long moment to remember how he got there. Moonblade…it had been the thestrals. He remembered looking out the front door after looking out the balcony door to try to figure out why the horns were blowing, and seeing Summer Dawn in the distance, floating up over the buildings towards the apartment. Then he saw Moonblade swoop in and strike her, drive her down out of sight. She had attacked Summer Dawn to draw him out, and it had worked. He wasn’t about to let that witch hurt her, so he went out to rescue Summer Dawn.

Yeah, that went well.

But what he didn’t understand was why he was still alive. He was mere seconds from death, his lungs fully constricted from the bleeding in his chest. He’d been unable to breathe, losing consciousness, but had enough presence of mind to make sure that he took Moonblade with him. Even if he hadn’t been moments from being suffocated, being impaled by that wingblade was mortal…how was he still alive? Not even the healing tonic he carried would have been able to save him from those ghastly wounds. How was he still alive?

Given how much he was hurting at that moment…maybe it would have been better if he died.

He was about to try to go back to sleep, but the door opened. It was within his field of view, so he opened his eyes and saw Summer Dawn limp in. She had a cast over her right foreleg and a bandage wrapped around her head, flattening her pink hair as it went around her horn. She looked at him and her eyes widened, then she rushed over to him as fast as she could manage. “Starjumper! Oh, Star, you’re awake! Nightsong!” she screamed. “He’s awake! He’s awake!” She reared up and put her uncasted forehoof on the bed, then dared lean down and kiss him exuberantly on the side of his muzzle. “Oh, Star, are you okay? I was so worried!”

“I’m very tired,” he replied in a bare whisper. “Where am I?”

“In the hospital,” she replied. “Princess Twilight used magic to save your life,” she said before he could ask.

“What happened to you?” he asked, his eyes looking down to the cast.

“Oh, this is nothing,” she said dismissively, lifting up her cast. It had been signed quite a few times. “I must have broken it when I was knocked into the café.”

“I…don’t remember,” he said hazily. “I remember waking up to see you crash through the window. I don’t know how I got there.”

“You were unconscious. A pony hit you when you were in the air and you crashed into the street. I got to you before they did and carried you away, but they caught up to me,” she told him. “I woke up here in the hospital.”

Behind her, there was the loud clatter of hooves on the wooden floor, and his mother and father almost pushed her out of the way. Nightsong leaned down and pressed her forehead against his muzzle tenderly, then his father Comet Tail did the same. “It’s so good to see you awake, son,” his father said, concern vibrating in his voice. Comet Tail was a very large stallion, as burly as an earth pony, and the combination of his size and Nightsong's size made it almost destiny that Starjumper would be big as well. He had a soft tan coat and a black mane that he had cut very short, and the white and blue comet cutie mark on his flank was barely visible from that angle.

“Mom, Dad,” he said, turning his head enough to look at them. “It’s good to see you.”

“It’s better to see you, son,” Nightsong told him, leaning down and kissing him on the forehead. “You had a very close call.”

“It was more than a close call,” he said quietly. He remembered feeling that wingblade go through him, how curiously relieved he felt, like it had helped him rather than hurt him. And that reminded him of why it was there. “Is Moonblade dead?”

“No,” Comet Tail answered. “They managed to save her as well.”

“Well, that’s disappointing, but not a shock. If they could keep me alive, I guess they could save her too.”

“You’re going to explain why you did that, Star!” Summer Dawn demanded. “They told me what happened, what you did. Why? Why would you do that to yourself!”

“Because Starjumper is more thestral than unicorn,” Nightsong said simply.

“What does that mean, Nightsong?” she pressed, looking up at her.

“It’s the final act of defiance,” she answered. “When the Gray Mare comes, a thestral will make sure that she doesn’t come for her alone.”

“What’s the Gray Mare?”

“Death,” she answered, looking down at the slender unicorn. “It’s an old thestral fable, that the Gray Mare comes and takes the soul of a thestral beyond the gray veil when they die. There’s nothing more dangerous in this world than a thestral who knows she’s about to die, Summer. She will do everything she can to take you with her. Remember that the next time you tangle with them. Moonblade made that mistake. She should have known that I would raise Starjumper properly, without all those silly unicorn niceties.”

“Dear,” Comet Tail said evenly.

“Simply put, ducky, Starjumper knew he was already going to die, so at that point doing something like impaling himself with a wingblade wasn’t going to make a difference for him,” Nightsong said, approval clear in her voice. “And like a true thestral, he tried to take his killer with him. He would have, if the Princess wouldn’t have saved their lives. What he did with the wingblade was a bit melodramatic, but it’ll make one awesome story to tell our future grandfoals. It’s how a true thestral meets the Gray Mare. With company, in a blaze of glory,” she added cheekily.

He could tell from the expression on Summer Dawn’s face that she was equal parts mystified and horrified by his mother, how such an amiable, chatty, entertaining mare could at the same time so be cold-blooded and casual about talking about her son effectively killing himself. But that was the duality of thestral personality. Thestrals were warriors at heart, and as such they did not fear death the way other ponies did.

“Mom, Dad, give us a minute,” he said, looking at Summer Dawn.

“Sure thing, son,” Comet Tail said. “We’ll go wake up your brother and sisters so they can come see you before you go back to sleep.”

“Alright.”

Summer Dawn stayed with him as they filed out, and she looked down at him with questioning eyes, as if she’d never seen the truth of him until that moment…and she was repulsed by it. “I warned you,” he told her. “That I wasn’t a unicorn. I’m a Lykan, Summer. That means I’m as much thestral as I am unicorn.”

“It’s not that, Star. I mean, I can understand wanting to—I mean, what you did. But why do that? Why kill yourself? Why didn’t you just zap her with magic?”

“Because by then it didn’t matter,” he told her in a weak voice. “I was mortally wounded, I was going to die any second. It was the only way to make sure I took her with me.” He reached out with his foreleg, his hoof trembling violently, and she cradled it with her own hoof. “I am so sorry, Summer,” he whispered. “I didn’t want you to get hurt. I didn’t want you tangled up in my secret. But I nearly got you killed.”

Her expression changed in a heartbeat, smiling down at him with exquisite tenderness. “I forgive you, Starjumper,” she told him. “I could have left the clock on the porch, but I didn’t. I wasn’t afraid of your secret then, and I’m not now. I knew that who you are meant that I may face danger. You are my friend, and I will stand with you even when things get scary. What kind of friend would I be if I didn’t?” she asked with a smile. “And I do believe, mister, that you owe me. I saved your life,” she said with insincere haughtiness. “I think that means that I don’t have to pay you to tutor me anymore.”

He just had to laugh, and that sent a searing jag of pain through his chest. “My, we’re getting pushy now,” he returned after the pain eased.

“You’d better get it out of your mind that this is getting you out of our deal,” she told him. “You haven’t taught me how to teleport yet. You haven’t taught me everything you know yet. And you will.”

“You may be better off having nothing more to do with me, Summer. I’m sure your parents are absolutely furious right now.”

“They are, but not at you,” she answered. “They’re way more mad at the thestrals for attacking me than at you. As far as they’re concerned, you saved me from them. You did kind of rescue me. Right before I rescued you,” she winked.

“They came after you because of me,” he said soberly, looking away from her.

“That doesn’t matter,” she said airily. “It was my decision. I accepted that risk, and I choose to keep accepting it. I won’t abandon you because of this, Star,” she declared, holding up her casted foreleg. “And you’re going to need me. I…I don’t think you’ll be too surprised to know that the whole city knows what happened. And they know what you are.”

He sighed, closing his eyes. “I did more or less change right there on the street,” he grunted in a low voice.

“The Princess made a declaration about it. She explained who you are, why the thestrals attacked you, and she made real sure to tell everypony that the old stories about were-ponies were just made up hooey,” she assured him. “And while I don’t know about everypony, I know that my parents are more curious than anything else. They really want you to come over for dinner, Star, and they told me to tell you that you don’t have any more excuses.”

He gave her a look, and she grinned at him impishly.

“And you should know that my parents met your family, and they like them. They’ve been here waiting for you to wake up, but it’s the middle of the night right now, so they’re at home sleeping.”

“How long have I been asleep?”

“Two days,” she answered.

He closed his eyes. “What happened to her?”

“She’s in a room on the other side of the hospital, under guard,” she answered. “The rest of them are all in jail.”

“They’re not sending them back to the Nightlands?”

“No, because they attacked me,” she stressed. “The Princess said if it had just been you, she woulda had no choice but to just banish them. But since they attacked me, she could arrest them and put them on trial.”

“Huh. Well, you turned out to be good for something after all.”

She gave him a tart look, then laughed helplessly. “If you’re picking on me, then you’re feeling better,” she grinned. “Let me go get your family, so you can see them before you go back to sleep.” She dared lean down and kiss him on the muzzle again, then turned and hobbled out of the room on her casted foreleg.

He closed his eyes, considering all that information. And part of it was his worst nightmare. He’d been exposed to Canterlot, and now everypony knew what he was. While he wasn’t ashamed of being a Lykan, that meant that now he had to guard against ponies that wouldn’t accept that he wasn’t dangerous, ponies like North Star—he had to be dancing in his parlor right about now with this kind of information to use against him—but he also had to guard against ponies that would try to somehow use his condition for their own ends. There was no doubt that there were a few enterprising potion makers that would realize that bits and pieces of him had magical potency for quite a few magical potions and draughts, as well as ponies like the Princess that would want to study his condition in the name of magical research and general knowledge. He honestly had no idea what was going to happen now, how his life was going to change because Equestria knew his secret…but he was fairly sure it wasn’t going to be all that good.

But that was a worry for another time. He smiled earnestly when his family rushed into the room, Summer Dawn limping along behind them, and he gave a pained wheeze when Dancer dared jump up on the bed and give him an entirely painful hug. “Dancer!” Nightsong barked, which made her give a horrified look at his expression and quickly scramble down.

“Oh my gosh, I’m so sorry, brother!” she said quickly. She was the youngest of his siblings, the very first foal in her kindergarten that got her cutie mark, the red outline of an eight-pointed star with a silver and blue horseshoe pointed down inside it, a mark Starjumper suspected represented her immense magical potential and her athletic nature, and she took after her father in almost all ways. She had his same tan coat and nearly black mane and tail, a unicorn horn sprouted out of the poof of fluffy bangs, and she was bigger than every foal in her kindergarten class, inheriting the size of both her parents. The only way she didn’t take after her father was the single fang she showed as she smiled, with the corresponding tooth on the other side missing. And if she had a fang on one side, she’d have a fang on the other.

If Dancer took after her father, Songbird took after her mother. She had the same color coat as Nightsong, the same near-black, but her coat was all one color. She also had her mother’s midnight blue mane, which she wore long and a bit unkempt. Like her mother and brother, her wings were oversized for her body, and in her case the tips of her wings extended well past her tail when she folded them. Because of that, she kept them open most of the time. Her cutie mark was a blue bird with outstretched wings with two very small musical notes coming from its beak, the notes white. She was a year older than Dancer, but she was the same size as her sister, which made them look more like twins.

The wild card was Silver Moon. He had traits from both his parents, but he was mostly all his own pony. His coat was a snowy white similar to Summer Dawn’s, but he had a patch of black that ran down his muzzle that started between his eyes and went all the way down over his nose and ending at his mouth, making his upper lip black and lower lip white. His forehooves were also black, like socks, and he had a patch of black right on his rump around his tail, which caused one of the most unusual colorations that truly made him stand out. Silver Moon’s mane was a rich chestnut brown, but his tail was black. His cutie mark cut right through that patch of black on his rump, a simple crescent moon that was a brilliant silver. It was very easy to see on the top half, where it was over the black, but hard to see at the bottom, where it was over the white. And while his eyes weren’t yellow, they were a deep, vibrant blue, they were vertically slitted like a thestral’s eyes, and he had fangs like his mother and siblings. But the one way he took after his father, and a true champion of the Astra bloodline, was in that he was absolutely huge. He was half a head taller than his father, who was taller than Starjumper. Silver Moon looked like an intimidating, hulking brute, but the reality was, he was the most gentle pony Starjumper had ever known, and growing up with his reading problem made him introverted.

“How are you feeling, brother?” Silver Moon asked, putting one of his massive hooves on his shoulder, very carefully.

“Like I’m not going anywhere for a while,” he answered, giving his brother a weak, earnest smile. Starjumper and Silver Moon were as close as Songbird and Dancer were to each other. “You should see the other pony, though.”

Silver Moon gave a low chuckle. “We heard that you spanked nearly the full squad of Night Blades. Good on you, bro.”

“That’s my big brother,” Songbird said brightly, rearing up and putting her hooves on the bed and touching her nose to his. “The doctors said you’d be going home soon. They’re using Dad’s tonic on you.”

“I brought half of our sale inventory with me,” Comet Tail said modestly. Comet Tail was a skilled potion maker, and he brewed and sold potions in the shop in addition to general merchandise. And many of his potions, tonics, and salves were in demand in Baltimare for everything from healing minor hurts to repairing broken objects to making plants grow with magical speed. He didn’t hoard his skills either, he taught potion making to others for a fee…and made sure that the ingredients his students needed to make their own potions could be bought in his shop. That way, he didn’t have to spend all his time making potions to meet the demand for them, yet also continued to profit off the potion making trade.

Comet Tail was a savvy businesspony.

Comet Tail was a powerful and accomplished unicorn magician, but what made him famous in Baltimare, and made Saddler’s Supplies so popular, was the potions he could make. “Enough to get you up and about in a few days, but you won’t be running any races for quite a while. They want to study the formula,” he chuckled. “I don’t see why, I got it out of one of the most common potion making recipe tomes around. But I was happy to sell them several flasks.”

“Canterlot unicorns don’t fool much with potions. I think they think them to be low-brow,” Silver Moon said, then he coughed awkwardly and looked down at Summer Dawn. “No offense,” he added.

“None taken,” she smiled up at him. “And you’re actually right. Most magicians think that potions are a lazy unicorn’s excuse for not properly studying magic. And that’s a bit of a silly point of view, in my opinion.”

“Good for you, Summer,” Comet Tail told her approvingly. “Magic is magic, no matter how it’s practiced.”

“How long until sunrise?” he asked.

“About five hours,” Nightsong answered. “Your father made sure to treat your wing, so it should be out of that brace in a couple of days. But you won’t be flying for a month, given how badly it was broken. Really, son, when you decide to break your wing, you don’t go halfway. The doctor said your main bones were broken in three places each and all four of your spars were broken in so many places that your wings were moving like they were cloth.”

“Blame them, not me,” he returned in a weary attempt to be cheeky.

He was very surprised when two new ponies pushed in with his family, and saw that it was Summer Dawn’s parents. Fancy Pants was without his customary tuxedo and monocle but still looked quite suave and dashing, and Fleur de Lis looked as incredibly beautiful at midnight with her mane slightly askew as she did when she stepped out in the morning with every hair just so. “I say, my good Starjumper, it’s good to see you awake,” Fancy Pants said with honest warmth, smiling down at him. “We were starting to worry.”

“I thought you were at home,” Starjumper said honestly.

“It’s only four blocks to our house from here, Starjumper, and they sent a message as soon as you woke up,” Fleur de Lis told him, her expression genuine and warm. “We’d have been here sooner if my husband didn’t think that being out of breath makes him look undignified.”

Dancer couldn’t resist a giggle.

“I heard that, young missy,” Fancy Pants said with entirely insincere arrogance. “And it does make me look undignified. But the important thing here is how you feel, Starjumper my lad. Feeling alright?”

“I’ll live,” he replied.

“The doctors said that thanks to your father’s impressive healing tonic, you should be up and about in a few days.”

“I hope so,” he said, not entirely comfortable looking Summer Dawn’s parents in the eyes. He was the reason she was in that cast, had that bandage around her head.

He listened as his parents engaged Summer Dawn’s parents, Nightsong quickly doing so after hearing his response and no doubt knowing how he felt. It was clear to him as he listened that over the time when he was asleep, they’d gotten to know each other very well. It wasn’t a surprise when it came to his mother, she was almost criminally charismatic and never failed to subvert everypony that came across her into her large stable of friends, but it was much more interesting to hear his father and siblings talk to Summer Dawn’s parents, as well as hear Summer Dawn interact with them. Summer Dawn was entirely comfortable with his family, and what was more telling, they were entirely comfortable with her.

That…was actually something of a relief. Summer Dawn’s parents weren’t acting like they were upset or angry with him or his parents over what happened. But he was still upset with himself. He almost felt sick, waking up to see her flying through the air like that, crashing into that umbrella and through that window, it was going to haunt him for the rest of his life.

She was three months older than him, but despite that, she was too young to be facing the kind of danger he’d brought into her life. She was a Canterlot unicorn, she was born and raised here where nothing ever went wrong and the most danger she may face in her entire life was a flowerpot falling from a window sill. She hadn’t been raised to prepare for danger the way he had been. She should be worrying about what dress she was going to wear to the next big party, not if she was going to live to see the sun set. The only enemies she should ever have were jerks like Nova that would threaten her social status, not ponies that wanted to kill her.

She had nearly died, because of him.

She was now the sworn enemy of the thestrals, because of him.

Her life was irrevocably changed, because of him.

The shame of knowing that made it hard for him to look her parents in the eye. Even if they didn’t blame him, it was still his fault, and that would always be there.

After a few minutes, Nightsong looked down at him, then took control of the situation. “Star looks about ready to pass out, so we should let him rest,” she declared. “We can visit him again in the morning, after he gets a chance to rest. So come on, all of you, out! Out!” she said with a good-natured yell, opening her large wings and shooing them towards the door with them. Starjumper noticed that his mother was quite careful not to push Summer Dawn’s parents towards the door, and they hung back after meeting her gaze.

His mother did all but know what he was thinking more often than he felt comfortable to admit.

After the others were pushed out of the room and the door closed, he took a deep breath and tilted his head to look up at them. “I am so sorry,” he said sincerely. “I never wanted her caught up in who I am and what it means. I tried to keep her away, but I failed. I, I needed the money she offered to have me teach her, and I thought that I could just keep things professional. But she was just so…so nice,” he said, closing his eyes. “And thoughtful, and sweet, it was impossible not to like her. And I thought maybe, just maybe, I could have just one friend, that it would be okay, that me being a Lykan wouldn’t matter. And I nearly got her killed,” he said, a tear forming along the border of his closed eyelids.

“I taught my daughter long ago to do what is right, even when other ponies tell you that it’s wrong,” her mother said simply. “And she sees so much right in you, Starjumper. You have no idea how much she respects and admires you. And now that we know the truth, we can’t help but admire you too,” she declared. “You’ve come a long way while carrying such a heavy burden, and that demands respect.”

“And the change in our daughter is worth…this minor inconvenience,” Fancy Pants continued. “You have no idea how much she has changed since she met you, young stallion. Before, she was unsure of herself, hesitant, and felt that her struggles in school made her somehow inadequate compared to her peers. But to see her now,” he said proudly. “She’s confident. She believes in herself, and we’re seeing the potential that we always knew was there start to show itself. And it’s all because of you.”

He looked up at them, then closed his eyes again and took a deep, cleansing breath. “You can help her now,” he said. “The problems she has are because she can’t read.”

He heard both of them gasp.

“It’s not because she doesn’t try. She has the same problem my brother does. There’s something fundamentally different in how she sees the letters on a page compared to everypony else that makes it impossible for her to discern letters from each other. I thought my brother was unique, that it was some strange problem that only he had, until I met her. And since I’ve seen it before, I knew how to help her.”

“I…I can’t believe that,” Fleur de Lis said. “She always seems to be reading when I come to her room!”

“She’s learned to hide it,” he told them. “And you can thank that school of hers for that. They taught her from a young age not to ask questions, that the questions she asked were silly and stupid and they didn’t want to hear it, and it trained her to keep it a secret. Even from you.”

“I…I never would have believed that,” Fancy Pants breathed. “It’s the best school in Equestria!”

“And that’s why they taught her from an early age to hide her problem, because she didn’t fit their image of the perfect student,” he said bluntly. “I’ll bet she’d ask basic questions about what they told her to read that would exasperate her teachers to the point where their responses scared her so much she just stopped asking. They trained her to hide her problem, even from ponies that would have helped her if they knew. Like you.”

“Why didn’t you tell us this sooner?” Fleur de Lis asked.

“Because she doesn’t know that I know, and it wasn’t my secret to reveal. Given what you know of me, I think you can understand that I take secrets very seriously, even secrets that aren’t my own. I wouldn’t even be telling you now if not for the fact that Summer Dawn may need your help. I…I may not be here for her. And I need your help to help her. There’s a spell,” he said. “A spell I found in a book a few days ago that creates a voice that reads aloud from a book. It was created by a unicorn that went blind, and needed the spell to read his books aloud for him so he could continue his magical studies. I haven’t learned the spell yet, I was going to learn it and teach it to her, but things got so crazy, I didn’t have the chance,” he sighed. “I want you to teach her that spell. It will let her learn what books have to offer her without me there to help her. Just don’t tell her why. Tell her it was a spell I was going to teach her as part of her tutoring, because it is a fairly difficult spell to cast. If she knew I knew her secret, it may crush her. She’d feel violated, deceived, like I was secretly laughing at her this whole time,” he said in a quiet voice. “And you shouldn’t tell her either. When she’s ready, she’ll tell you. Until then, it’s best if you just leave her be.” He took a breath. “And if you would, give a copy of it to my father, so he can teach it to my brother. My father knows about my brother’s problem, so it won’t look strange if it comes from him instead of from you. He needs it too. It’s in my apartment, upstairs, the shelf on the far right, third shelf from the top, second book on the left. The book’s titled Magic to Assist the Blind, Deaf, or Mute.”

The two of them looked down at him. “I’m sure that you’ll be here to teach her that spell, Starjumper,” Fancy Pants told him.

“If she was smart, she’d walk away from me and never look back,” he said in a quiet voice.

They both chuckled. “If you know her as well as you think you do, you know that is the last thing she would ever do,” Fleur de Lis told him. “And not because she isn’t smart,” she added lightly.

“I may not give her that choice,” he admitted in a charged voice. “I nearly got her killed, and all because I was feeling lonely. I’ll never forgive myself for that.” He closed his eyes. “Never.”

“But we forgive you, Starjumper,” Fleur de Lis told him, putting a gentle hoof on his bandaged shoulder. “This wasn’t your fault. This was their fault, not yours.”

“And if you care anything for Summer Dawn, you wouldn’t be talking about running away now,” Fancy Pants said calmly. “Not only is that not the stallion we’ve come to know from talking to her and your family, but it would hurt her.”

“I—she’s not—we’re not—” he said quickly, but Fleur de Lis cut him off.

“We didn’t say that you were,” she told him. “But it can hurt just as much when a friend cuts you off from them, and you don’t understand why. She believes that now more than ever, you need her, Starjumper. She won’t abandon you when she thinks you need her the most. That’s not who she is, and I think you know that. And if you think that we’re going to stand in the way of that, that we in any way blame you for everything that happened, well hear it from us right now. We do not.”

“Here here,” Fancy Pants agreed. “You have shown only the best interests for our daughter since the day you met her, Starjumper. It’s abundantly clear to me now, given what you just told me. This little secret of yours does not matter when it’s the pony you are that we see,” he said, looking over his head and at his wings quite deliberately.

“It’s that secret that almost got her killed.”

“And it’s that secret that brought out the very best in her,” Fleur de Lis challenged. “You took her in and you taught her far more than just magic. You taught her diligence, discipline, persistence, you showed her that she is more than she ever believed she could be, and you have given her a passion and a strength that would make any parent proud. She believes in herself, she will be the shining star we hoped that she would be, and that’s all thanks to you. This secret of yours makes you strong, Starjumper, and you have imparted some of your strength into our daughter. How could we possibly blame you for that?”

He looked up at them, at a complete loss for words, then put his head back on the pillow and decided to simply say nothing. He didn’t want to sound like an idiot.

“Don’t blame yourself for something that nopony else believes was your fault, my young stallion,” Fancy Pants told him gently. “Like my wife said, we blame them for this, not you,” he almost seethed. “They were the ones that came here to start a fight. They were the ones that broke their promise. They were the ones that attacked you, and did it like complete cowards, I might add,” he said hotly. “Using our daughter to get to you, that is the epitome of cowardice.”

“And that’s why she needs to stay away from me,” he protested weakly.

“That’s why you need her beside you now more than ever before,” Fleur de Lis retorted, her eyes steady and her expression determined. “You are not alone, Starjumper. And the more ponies that stand with you, the more likely it is that they never try again. If they see that all of Equestria will stand behind you, they will leave you alone. Alone, you are vulnerable. When Equestria stands with you, you are invincible,” she said in a powerful voice. “And if that starts with your friend and her parents, then that’s a fine place for it to start from my point of view.”

He gave them an honestly surprised look, humbled literally beyond words. That…that was the last thing he ever expected to hear from any pony that was not his family.

“Now, I think you need to get some rest. And since you are literally a captive audience, I have one more thing to say to you,” Fleur de Lis said with a smile, then she leaned down and gave him a kiss on the muzzle. “Rest well. We’ll see you in the morning.”

He was just…stunned, watching them incredulously as they walked out of the room. To hear the mother of the mare he almost killed with his childishness say that to him, he just, he didn’t know what to think. What to say. It was shocking, it was humbling, it was confusing. It was against everything he believed when it came to how ponies would react to his secret, and she had given him something entirely new to think about it, the idea that if the ponies of Equestria supported him the same way that Princess Celestia did when she forced the Night King to agree to the treaty, the thestrals may never bother him again. If they saw that Equestria would defend him, they may think twice about making another attempt. But that was something he never believed would happen. The old stories, he was sure that the ponies of Equestria would fear him, reject him. And some would, like North Star, either because of superstition or because it was convenient for them to do so in order to further their own plans. But the idea that he might be…be accepted, despite what he was, it had never crossed his mind. Once.

Ever.

Maybe that was the wrong way to think, but it was what he had always believed. And the price he would pay if he was wrong made it too much of a risk to believe anything different. It was his life on the line, and to put his life in the hooves of ponies that he didn’t know….

But that was a moot point now. All of Canterlot knew he was a Lykan…and that secretly terrified him. It was a good thing his family was here, that was going to be the only reason he’d have the courage to step out of the hospital when the time came. But at least he had time to come to terms with it, at least in the short term. How he’d feel in a month…that was another story.

Well, he did have options. He could just leave Canterlot, despite what the Princess wanted. What was she going to do, throw him in the dungeon? Equestria was a huge realm, there were plenty of places he could go where he could simply disappear. He’d learned the stoneshaping spell, so he could make any home he wanted just about anywhere he pleased. He could shape a large home for himself on one of the many mountaintops in the realm, one that would have a breathtaking view of some valley, or maybe the ocean. The ocean sounded better. Between stoneshaping and transfiguration, he could make it as comfortable or as opulent as he wanted, able to use magic to make any furniture he wanted. He could shape a magnificent mansion rivaling the Waterfalls on that mountaintop if he wished. He didn’t need any money, didn’t need another pony. He could do it all himself. Alone.

But…that magnificent home high on that mountaintop would be empty. There would be no laughter, no warm smiles, no Summer Dawn sitting on her cushion, the tip of her tongue poking out from between her lips as she bit her tongue while working on a new spell.

There would be no Summer Dawn….

He closed his eyes, refusing to admit it to himself, yet knowing it was true. He would miss her. Living away from Canterlot would mean that he would not be with his friend, and he wanted to be with his friend. She was the only pony he’d ever known outside his family that had ever accepted him for who he was without ever pushing for more. She accepted his secrecy, accepted his silence, and never once complained.

And he nearly killed her!

And that was his conundrum. He loved being around Summer Dawn. She was funny, she was smart, she was sassy, she kept him on his toes and gave him somepony to pick on when he needed a little harmless diversion. And Celestia, was she powerful. He felt a very solemn duty to finish what he started, to teach her everything he knew and then watch with quiet pride as she eclipsed him, as she became more than he could ever be. It was there. It was within her. She just needed to unlock the gates.

But he nearly got her killed. No matter how much he loved to teach her, to be around her, just be with her, she almost died because of him. SHE ALMOST DIED! That brilliant light, that amazing mare, was nearly taken from the world because of him, because he wasn’t mature enough to be able to handle being alone for just a couple of weeks, because he was so weak, so immature, so childish, that he put his own needs over her safety. He had pulled her into his uncertain world arrogantly believing that the dark stain of his curse would not touch her, and he had been wrong.

Wrong.

He didn’t know what to do. He felt…lost. He had nearly killed the only pony in this entire world outside of his family that he cared about, and he was torn between wanting to honor her wishes that nothing change and living with the crushing guilt that he would feel every time he looked at her, knowing that she had come this close to dying, and it was because of him.

He did not want to be without her. Yet being with her was going to destroy him.

The thestrals were right. He was cursed. And he hadn’t understood what it was or what it meant until that moment. The curse wasn’t about who or what he was, the curse was the dark reality that he would never have a life where other ponies could be in it. He would forever yearn for what other ponies had, only to know that everypony he touched, every life he entwined with his own, was doomed to suffer.

Because of him.

He knew that he would forever be alone, but now he understood it for the curse it was. He didn’t understand what it meant until that moment, that it was not the noble solitude of a hermit, but the tormented isolation of a pony trapped at the bottom of a well, screaming and screaming and screaming for help for the rest of his days, knowing that it would never come.

He gave a single, quiet sigh and closed his eyes. Maybe he was being too negative. Maybe things would look better in the morning.

But he knew they wouldn’t.

Starjumper found out the next day just how adorably, obnoxiously determined Summer Dawn could really be.

He had the feeling that her parents had ratted him out. They’d told her about his worries and fears, and about his apology to them, that could be the only explanation for her behavior.

For one, she had seemingly so entwined herself into his family that she was acting like a part of it. She had all three of his siblings all but following her around like little puppies—even his brother!—and had his little sisters almost fighting each other for her attention. She even had his parents eating out of her hoof, and as they all stood in his room, she gave him a direct, challenging look, as if daring him to try to distance himself from her when she was worming her way into the core of his life. She was doing it so his family would come down on him if she cried to them that he wouldn’t see her, wouldn’t talk to her. It was blatant manipulation, a Canterlot society pony showing just how well she knew how to pull on the strings she was tying around his family, and he had no answer to it. This was a socialite using her social skills to put his family in her saddlebag. He knew she was doing it, she knew he knew she was doing it, and she was utterly unrepentant even as he glared at her.

For another, she made it absolutely, abundantly clear whenever she talked to him that as soon as he was ambulatory, her lessons would continue. He could rest and recover while she practiced, to the point where she talked his father into helping her move his bed downstairs, her excuse being so he didn’t have to go up and down to the get to the kitchen, but her real motive was so he could lay down while she practiced.

And as far as that went, she also made it abundantly clear that she was going to be the nurse that oversaw his recovery, since she was going to be there quite a bit anyway. She asked all sorts of questions of the doctors and nurses when they came to check on him, and the wording of her queries was in no way subtle or alluding. She asked direct questions about things like what he should eat, how much activity she should allow him to have and so on and so on. He had quite a few things to say about that, but he didn’t get the opportunity to get her alone so he could disabuse her of that notion. She took the coward’s way out and made sure she was never alone in the room with him, since she knew that he wouldn’t yell at her when she was in company.

He knew she was smart. He had no idea she was so devious.

His recovery was going quite swiftly thanks to both whatever it was the Princess did to save his life and the liberal application of the Astra family healing tonic. The tonic accelerated the natural healing rate by nearly ten times, and while it did cause him to rapidly heal, it also caused him to eat almost obscene amounts of food while he was under its effect. He burned a lot of energy healing, and that energy had to be replenished to keep his accelerated healing going. The pain had diminished greatly since he woke up the night before, but he was still very tender and couldn’t move without wincing. But, during the day, his horn meant that he didn’t have to move to get things done. He was able to use magic without hurting himself, at least spells that required little or no effort, so levitation was easily within his convalescent repertoire. But, he found that using magic around Summer Dawn caused her to go absolutely ballistic. She had it in her mind that any effort on his part was somehow slowing his recovery, and a single icy glare from her was usually enough to make the golden glow vanish from around his horn.

Really, that sassy little mare was just walking in and taking over his life. And he was letting her!

He also saw that Summer Dawn’s parents were moving right in along with her. Fancy Pants and Fleur de Lis moved through his family like it was some kind of party, talking to all of them as if they’d known them for years, showing as much interest in Songbird and Dancer’s foalish rambling as Silver Moon and Comet Tail’s talk about the business of running a shop. They were quite happy to look very surprised and impressed when Dancer showed off the newest magic spell her father had taught her, but the look of awed wonder in their eyes was not in any way feigned when Songbird and Nightsong sang for them. The two of them had very different voices, but when they sang together, they blended into a haunting harmony that seemed to bring all activity around them to a stop.

The fun part was sunset. He was awake for it this time, awake to feel his wings grow in, and then the icy, nearly debilitating pain as his broken wing bent at the breaks before his father and the doctor could stabilize it with magic, since it had no cast or support. And that sudden movement put pressure on the multiple smaller breaks in the spars, the bones between which the membranes stretched, and that caused a sheet of pain to rip through his wing. It was enough to put him back on the bed, shuddering as he tried with every shred of his awareness not to move, knowing that moving would only make the pain worse, allowing them to splint his wing. And on top of that, he felt almost…awkward with the idea that the doctor and Summer Dawn’s parents had seen him change. In a way, it was an intensely personal thing for him, a core of his identity that he kept secret, and he honestly didn’t know how to process the idea that ponies he barely knew had seem that most private part of him.

But, that was just a stark reminder of what waited for him beyond the door of the hospital, he supposed. He’d have to get used to the idea that Canterlot knew his secret.

Because there was no real way that they could splint every break in every bone in his wing, he ended up on his side with his broken wing resting carefully on the bed behind him, the same position in which he’d awoken the night before. And to make absolutely sure he didn’t move his wing, the doctor put it in traction of a sort, tying cords to the spikes at the tips of his wing bones and securing them to a frame to completely immobilize the wing, but doing it very carefully so those secured points didn’t pull the bones out of alignment and cause his wing to heal incorrectly. He felt them apply a fresh batch of his father’s tonic to his wing, the liquid growing hot before it absorbed into the skin and membrane, and it soothed the pain somewhat after it worked its way into his wing and set to work.

“Better, son?” his father asked as he settled down.

“Some,” he answered, resting his head against the pillow and closing his eyes. “How much longer am I going to be tied down?”

“Judging by how fast this tonic works, the smaller breaks may be set enough to allow you to move around by the morning after next,” the doctor answered from behind him, his voice professional. “So, two more nights in traction. The breaks in your main wing bones are going to take much longer to heal to the point where they won’t need to be splinted. Maybe two to three weeks. And you won’t be flying for at least a month. The main bone extending out from your back will need time to fully heal, given how much stress flying puts on it. If it’s not fully and completely healed, you’ll just break it again the first time you try to take off.”

“It’s never taken this long for the tonic to heal my wings,” Starjumper protested.

“You’ve never broken them like this before, either,” Comet Tail answered him.

“I broke my wing two years ago and the tonic mended the bone in a week,” he said, almost indignantly.

“That was a clean break of the radius, son. This is multiple fractures in both the radius and ulna, and two fractures in the humorous bone that absorbs almost all the stress flying places on your wings. And there’s more breaks than I can count along the spar bones. You even broke the bone in your thumb claw, Star. It’s going to take the tonic time to repair this much damage. It can only go so fast.”

“Well, isn’t there some bone mending spell?” he complained.

“Magic doesn’t work that way, and you know it,” the doctor chided. “If I can’t see the damage I’m trying to mend with magic, I can’t do anything about it. So, while I could mend your lacerations and abrasions with a magic spell, there’s nothing I can do about your internal injuries.”

“Hmph,” Starjumper snorted, which made Dancer and Songbird both giggle. “Yeah, keep laughing, you two, I won’t be in this thing when the sun comes up,” he threatened, which made them laugh harder. “Why can’t you use the spell that mends broken objects? That doesn’t require line of sight on the internal structure of the object.”

“Have you ever tried to use that on a living thing?” the doctor challenged. “Trust me. Don’t.”

“Well, then transfigure my wing from a broken wing to a whole one,” he said. “You can do that, Summer. I taught you permanent living transfiguration.”

“Oh no I’m not,” she retorted. “I may know what your wing looks like on the outside, Star, but I have no idea how it works on the inside. I’d ruin your wing!”

“Well, I know how it works,” he fumed. “But I can’t use that magic on myself without my horn.”

“Then I’d say you’re pretty much out of luck, Star,” Nightsong said without much compassion. “I just love being surrounded by ponies that are so helpful to me,” he muttered darkly.

“My, somepony’s getting snippy,” Nightsong said evenly. “I think this churlish mood is from lack of sleep. We have kept you up for a fairly long time, and the tonic does exhaust a pony when it’s working. So we’ll clear out and let you sleep, son.”

It’s not like I can do much else,” he complained.

After the doctor shooed them out and gave him one final check, he turned off the light and closed the door. He was just about to drift off to sleep, but a burst of magical light roused him out of his reverie, and he found himself looking into the eyes of Princess Twilight. She’d teleported into the room. She used magic, a spell he knew, which caused a dome of silence to surround them. “Your Highness. Excuse me if I don’t get up,” he said with dry humor. But instead of making her smile, it instead splashed a pained look across her face. “Are you alright?”

“I need to talk to you,” she said in a low, depressed voice. She sat down in front of him, her golden-shod hooves scraping across the wooden floor, then she lowered her head and sighed. “I came to apologize,” she said. “This is all my fault.”

“I don’t see how,” he told her honestly. “You weren’t going to keep Moonblade in her room outside of locking her in.”

“No, Star. I had the chance to stop this, and I didn’t,” she said, looking up at him with intense guilt in her eyes. “We thought—there was—“ she floundered, then she took a deep breath and raised her head, looking him in the eye. “I’m not supposed to tell you this, but I think you deserve to know the truth. We thought you were the subject of one of the ancient prophecies, Starjumper. When Moonblade attacked you, I held the guards back because we thought it was a necessary part of the prophecy coming true. But we were wrong. I was wrong. And you’re in here because of it,” she said, looking down again. “You almost died, Starjumper, and it was because of me. Because of me,” she whispered.

He looked at her, and for a strange moment, he could only think of his own guilt over Summer Dawn. He knew how she was feeling because he felt the same way, he knew what kind of pain that kind of guilt could cause because he felt it as well. It wasn’t long ago that he was apologizing to Summer Dawn’s parents with as much sincerity and emotion as she was showing him now. And it was strange to be on the other side of it. Now he knew how his parents felt, how Summer Dawn’s parents felt, when they told him that it was alright. That while he had made a mistake, they could forgive him for it because he didn’t make it out of malice. They knew he would never have done that on purpose, put her in danger on purpose, and because of that, they could look beyond it. As he looked at her, he realized that he couldn’t be angry. She didn’t do what she did out of malice, she was acting in what she thought was the best interests of all of Equestria, and he owed Equestria too much to hold that against her.

“When I was born, Princess, the thestrals came for me,” he said quietly, looking at her from his bed. “My mother and father couldn’t fight them all. They would have taken me. They would have killed me, if not for Princess Celestia. She saved my life, Princess Twilight, and she never asked for anything in return. Because of that, I’ve always lived up to my responsibilities of the treaty, out of respect for her and what she did for me. I owe her my life, Princess, and that means that I also owe Equestria. I’ve lived here all my life, and while I’ve never truly belonged here, I knew that here, I was safe. If you truly thought that what happened between me and Moonblade was necessary to protect Equestria, then I forgive you.”

She looked up at him, her teary eyes wide and her expression surprised.

“I know that you’d never let this happen unless there was a reason so important that it would make you cry when it was over,” he said gently. “That being said, come closer.” She leaned forward a little, her eyes quizzical and a bit perplexed. “Closer.” She got up and stepped up to him, until her muzzle was barely a foot from his own. He raised his foreleg and tapped her lightly on the top of her muzzle, which made her recoil a little bit. “Bad Princess. There, now you’ve been punished, so you can move on from feeling guilty about it.”

She gave him a shocked look, then burst into helpless, relieved, heartfelt laughter. “Starjumper Astra, you are something special,” she told him with a shiny-eyed smile, daring to lean down and touch her nose to his forehead, a very matronly act. “But I’m still going to feel terrible about it. The prophecy—“

“No,” he warned. “I may still be the subject of it, so I can’t know anything about it. Any knowledge I have of it might cause it to fail, because I’ll change my behavior based on what the prophecy predicts.”

“The awareness divergence theory,” she said with an impressed voice. “You really have studied.”

“We have a book on divination magic in our family library,” he told her.

“But, I already told you about the prophecy—“

“I’m a Lykan, Princess. If there’s one thing I’m good at, it’s pretending that a secret doesn’t exist,” he told her easily.

“I…alright,” she nodded. “I’ll leave you to get some rest, Starjumper. You’ve given me a lot to think about.”

“Thank you for coming, Princess. I think I needed to hear what you had to say.”

She gave him a gentle look, then took a step back. Her horn flared, and then she vanished in a circular burst of purple magic. He laid his head back down as the dome of silence shimmered and vanished, considering what she said. And he did need to hear that. To hear Princess Twilight’s apology put his own guilt in this situation in perspective, that if he could forgive her, then he could accept that the others would forgive him. It still made him all but terrified for Summer Dawn’s safety, that she may be hurt because of him…but he really didn’t have too much control over that. If Summer Dawn was the one pushing her way into his life, then it was her choice, her decision. And given she was older than him by three months, that meant that she clearly had the maturity to understand the situation, understand the potential danger of it, and accept it.

He didn’t have the right to tell her how to live her life, even if he vociferously disagreed with the decision that she was making.

And he couldn’t lie to himself, a part of him didn’t want her to go. She was…she was the only part of Canterlot that made this place bearable. She was his friend, his only real friend, and he didn’t want to lose that.

He didn’t want to lose her.

So, that decision being made for him, it only gave him one real option. If he could not make her stay away, then he had to arm her with every weapon he could find so she could protect herself. If she was ever put in danger again, she was as sure as Luna’s beautiful moon not going to be hurling snowballs at her attackers. If he had taught her better, been more realistic about his situation and hers, the very first spell he would have taught her would have been the Mana Bolt, the staple attack spell for any serious unicorn magician. While it may not have done her much good against the Night Blades thanks to their spell dampeners, it would have still given her options. She was smart and she was creative, she would have found a way to use the spell to get at them, the way he had by using it on the cobblestones in front of the Night Blades that attacked him to shower them with stone shards and blind them.

But the first thing she needed to learn was teleportation. Armed with that spell, she would always have a means to get herself to safety in a way that her attackers could not follow. If he’d taught her that spell sooner, she could have teleported herself and him away when she came to his defense, that moment she told him about where she defended him when he was unconscious. If she could have teleported, then she wouldn’t have been hurt, and he wouldn’t be in that hospital bed.

This was his fault, he could see, but because he had been too lazy. She was capable of learning faster than he was teaching, he should have been teaching her at her pace, not his own.

Well, that was something that he could fix. And fix quickly.

He gave a long sigh and relaxed, and he was almost surprised by how quickly sleep rose up to claim him.

He wasn’t sure if he’d ever felt so vulnerable in his entire life.

Wincing a bit against the bright winter sunshine on a crisp, cold day, Starjumper hobbled slowly out of the front door of the hospital with his parents behind him and Summer Dawn right beside him, hobbling a bit herself on her casted foreleg. It was a cold winter late morning, almost noon, the sky clear but clouds being banked up to the west to prepare for a scheduled snow shower.

He could almost feel eyes on him as soon as he came out onto the street, walking a bit gingerly. Four days of care from the doctors and constant doses of his father’s healing tonic had gotten him ambulatory, but he could feel the tightness through his chest and back, the path the blade had taken when it went through him, which told him that he was nowhere near healed. It would be another week minimum before he’d feel healed as a unicorn, and maybe another week or two after that before his wings were healed enough to allow him to fly when he was a thestral. Until then, he felt vulnerable, and knowing that every pony in Canterlot knew his secret made him feel even more vulnerable still.

He could almost feel their eyes on him. He could almost hear them whispering behind their hooves. It was a supreme act of will not to just teleport to the apartment, and had considered doing that when he was discharged. The whole city knew about that too, so there was no reason to hide it now. But Summer Dawn had somehow managed to talk him into walking, and it took directly challenging his courage to get him to do it. She’d told him that just ‘porting to his apartment was the coward’s way, and to just get it over with now. He couldn’t hide in his apartment forever, after all.

Seriously, he had no idea why he was putting up with her. She’d gotten way too sassy the last few days.

The cold air outside was almost like a knife in his healing lungs, and he had to stop a moment to get his breath. “You okay, Star?” Summer Dawn asked in concern.

“It’s the cold air,” he said, breathing shallowly. “Give me a minute.”

“Feeling alright outside that, son?” Nightsong asked. “Any weakness? Your chest feel alright?”

“I’m fine, Mom,” he answered. He glanced to the side when a familiar face tickled the edge of his vision, and he saw Summer Dawn’s parents trotting up to them.

“Sorry we’re late, we got a bit held up,” Fancy Pants declared. “Ready to escort the patient home?”

“Silver Moon should have everything there ready,” Comet Tail answered. “We can only hope that the fillies haven’t gone through every cabinet and broken half the glassware yet.”

Fleur de Lis laughed. “Those two are a hoof-full, aren’t they?”

“Oh yes, they’re definitely acting like proper thestrals. Nothing like his side of the family,” Nightsong said with a bit of a roll of her eyes, pointing her hoof at Comet Tail.

“You are just never going to forgive Silver Moon for being a proper unicorn, are you?”

“You may have won with Silver Moon, dear, but both fillies are definitely mine. Silver Moon is way too well-behaved to be my foal.”

Summer Dawn and her parents all laughed. “I thought a foal wasn’t yours when they were getting in trouble, not when they were in trouble,” Fancy Pants noted lightly.

“You clearly know nothing about thestrals,” Nightsong said airily, putting her nose up and cantering forward a few steps.

“So, were you Nightsong’s foal when you were younger, Star, or Comet Tail’s?” Summer Dawn asked impishly.

“I refuse to answer that,” he replied, which made his parents laugh.

“That one is all mine, ducky,” Nightsong winked. “He was my consolation prize for Silver Moon being the most singularly unexciting foal in the history of motherhood.”

“I’m sure he’d love to hear your honest opinion of him, Mom,” Starjumper called.

“He knows I’m utterly disappointed in his complete lack of mischief as a colt,” she replied shamelessly. “If a foal is no trouble, then he’s no fun at all! And by now, any mischief he makes is obviously staged just to make me feel better. It’s not honest mischief, so it’s an insult!”

Starjumper just had to shake his head, which made Summer Dawn burst out laughing.

And that was Nightsong.

While he wasn’t going to teleport back to the apartment, he also wasn’t going to just walk down the street, either. That was too far for him to go feeling the way he did. Lucky for him, he had another way to get there, one that would be less taxing on him. His horn flared with golden magic, the light surrounded his body, and he picked himself up off the icy stones outside the hospital. Summer Dawn grinned at him and did the same, and Comet Tail and her parents did the same; Summer Dawn had taught them the trick of self-levitation, and they’d known how to do it long enough to be fully competent. And both Fancy Pants and Fleur de Lis tried their best to look suitably humble, even as they seemed quite smug about being able to do something that most other socialites had yet to learn. Canterlot socialite humble-bragging in action by means of magic, Starjumper supposed. Nightsong opened her wings and joined them as they rose up, then flapped along, slowing down so she could stay with them.

In that way, Starjumper’s arrival in Canterlot had caused something of a seismic shift in their social order. Summer Dawn had taught her parents the trick of self-levitation, and now it was the magic trick that every socialite just had to learn how to do. Fancy Pants and Fleur de Lis were trendsetters in Canterlot social circles, and them showing off a bit with that trick had caused a sudden run on tutors capable of teaching the technique to other socialites. It was a technique that most unicorns would be able to pull off, it really wasn’t that hard to do. A unicorn didn’t even need the raw strength to pick up his entire body weight, but did need enough strength to pick up about half of it to use the technique, due to the way the magic was applied to overcome physics. Summer Dawn’s parents both had more than enough strength to use it. It was just that the amount of skill it took to use safely meant that most Canterlot unicorns, who didn’t do anything dangerous, had never learned it. The technique could cause serious injury if the unicorn messed it up, which was why the school wouldn’t teach it. And if the school wouldn’t teach it, Canterlot social elite wouldn’t do it.

That mentality was a good example of Canterlot society in general. They were almost timid as a lot, afraid to take risks.

It amazed him sometimes that Summer Dawn was a product of that culture. She was way more adventurous than most of her socialite peers.

His mother kept the group suitably entertained as they floated across the city without need of following the streets, going over the buildings. And he couldn’t help but notice that the unicorns of Canterlot were staring up at them, watching him. It was Nightsong that was probably getting their attention, but once they were looking up at them, their eyes were settling on him. His ability to remember what he saw allowed him to glance down at them and remember their expressions, searching for any indication that they were repulsed by the sight of him. And while there was quite a bit of slightly affronted looks, nothing was outright hostile. But that might have something to do with Nightsong and her loud, irreverent bantering. She was way too impertinent to gel well with Canterlot snobs. They took themselves way too seriously to be ready for his mother. He was honestly surprised that Summer Dawn and her parents liked her so much.

And they’d be even more shocked to find out how uncivilized his mother could be. Behind that audacious and cheekily amusing exterior beat the heart of a predator, a mare that had it within her to fight and kill, and do so with neither reservation nor remorse.

They landed on the apartment balcony, and Silver Moon opened the doors and stepped out as the others landed behind him. “Easy trip, brother?” he asked, stepping up and putting a hoof on his smaller sibling’s shoulder.

“Much easier than if I’d have walked,” he answered, looking up at Silver Moon with a smile. “Where are the fillies?”

“Making cupcakes,” he said with a roll of his eyes.

Starjumper winced. “Well, there goes my kitchen,” he sighed, which made Summer Dawn laugh.

And sure enough, there was a thin pall of flour in the air when he stepped into the apartment. On the far end of the large main room, the fillies were standing on their rear hooves on the kitchen stools at the island counter, mixing something in a bowl, and they had flour everywhere.

“Aww, you’re here too soon, brother!” Dancer complained. “We wanted to surprise you!”

“You just did,” he said with a disapproving look at the sorry state of his kitchen. But the two fillies were utterly unrepentant, Songbird continuing to stir the batter by clinging to the spoon, allowing her to manipulate it fairly easily.

“We’re almost ready to put them in the oven!” Songbird declared. “Where do you keep the stuff to make icing?”

“Oh Luna no,” he retorted, which made Silver Moon chuckle behind him.

“Aww! We’re not babies anymore, brother!”

“Look at my kitchen, you two little terrors!” he retorted, pointing at the flour-encrusted hoofprints on the ceiling. “Did you have to track flour on the ceiling, Songbird? Why would you even do that?”

“Better your kitchen than mine,” Nightsong trilled as she came in behind him, which made Fancy Pants and Fleur de Lis crack up.

“Dancer wouldn’t bring the bowl down,” she accused, looking at her younger sister.

“You kept trying to put in the vanilla before it was mixed!” she retorted. “The vanilla’s added after you have the batter mixed! That’s how Mom does it!”

“Girls,” Comet Tail said in a commanding voice, which made the two of them look away from each other, in a bit of a snit.

Outside of the girls redecorating his apartment with a flour motif, he saw that they’d made a few changes. The bed was now down in the living room, set in the large empty space in the center of the room so they didn’t have to move anything. They had turned both of the divans to face the bed, and the writing desk had been pulled over to sit beside the bed so he could use it without getting up. He barely had time to look around before he was being pushed towards the bed by a stern-faced Summer Dawn, putting her shoulder against him and pushing gently but inexorably. “I’m not crippled,” he protested.

“The doctor said you should be in bed unless you have a reason to be out of it,” she replied firmly. “The more you rest, the faster you recover. So lay down and let us take care of you,” she ordered.

“Us?” he challenged.

The stare she leveled on him made all four of their parents chuckle. He was about to square off against this increasingly overbearing little mare, but he found himself being picked up by levitation magic, the color of it betraying his father’s meddling. Comet Tail floated him over and set him on the bed, then pushed down using his magic until he folded his legs and settled on his belly. “She’s right in this case, son. The doctor said bed rest for the next three days,” he said mildly.

It was an interesting continuation of what he’d seen over the last four days. Summer Dawn and her parents had gotten more and more comfortable being around his rather unusual family over the days he recovered, since they visited quite often and had taken his family out to see Canterlot when not in the room with him. He’d gotten to know her parents over the last few days, and he’d been honestly surprised by them. He had no idea how they acted in public, where they were paragons of Canterlot society, but in private they were both warm, intelligent, funny, kind ponies, and he could see so much of Summer Dawn in them…or more to the point, he could see so much of them in Summer Dawn. She had her mother’s tomcoltish playfulness, adventurous spirit, and curiosity, and her father’s wit, humor, and grace. If Summer Dawn was an exceptional young mare, it was because of how well her parents had raised her.

She did seem a bit, well, overwhelmed by the chaos that was so common in the Astra household. With four siblings and parents that were rather unique in their own way all sharing an apartment over the shop, the rough and tumble nature of things in their family seemed to both mystify and intrigue her. He guessed that growing up in that huge mansion and being an only pony meant she was used to a much more, well, sedate home life, not the constant chatter and ponies moving all over the place, not to mention the mischief that the fillies seemed to constantly get into. Both of them were almost too energetic, curious, and didn’t really care if they got into things they had no business being in.

But, the one advantage of the way they’d set up the apartment was that it put him within easy reach of everything. As his father chatted with Fancy Pants and Fleur de Lis, and his brother, mother, and Summer Dawn were in the kitchen helping the fillies with their cupcake project, he teleported the book holding the spell he wanted Summer Dawn to learn down to the writing desk. When it appeared in a circular burst of golden magic, it caught the attention of Summer Dawn’s parents. “I’m almost tempted to see if you can teach me that spell, my young stallion,” Fancy Pants. “I tried to learn it when I was younger, but couldn’t quite get it right.”

“Did you ever manage to pull it off?” he asked.

“Once. I managed to go about two feet, and I completely burned off my mane,” he replied, a bit sheepishly. “My tutor told me that a reaction like that meant that the spell was simply beyond my strength.”

“Your tutor was an idiot,” he replied immediately and bluntly. “If you can get the spell to go off, you can use it. Period.”

“Really?” he asked in sudden interest.

“The power required to use the spell is all about making it work,” he answered. “How strong you are does dictate how far you can make something go when you teleport it, but if you can get the spell to work, if you have the magical strength to breach the otherspace, then you can use the spell safely. Your tutor had no idea how the spell really works. Never hire that tutor again.”

“Well now,” he said with sudden animation, sitting up a bit on the divan. “Perhaps I could talk you into explaining where he was wrong, and perhaps helping me fix the mistakes I was making,” he invited.

“And maybe you can teach it to me. I never managed to get anywhere with it,” Fleur de Lis added.

“When I have time, I’d be happy to help both of you. It’s the least I can do to thank you for all you’ve done for me,” he replied, glancing at Summer Dawn, who was giggling and laughing with the fillies as they iced the cupcakes. “But I have a lot of other work to do.”

Fleur de Lis didn’t miss that. “You’re teaching her the spell,” she realized.

“She asked me to teach her everything I know,” he replied simply.

“Can she do it?” she asked in a low voice.

“There’s nothing she can’t do when it comes to magic, Fleur de Lis,” he answered her in a calm voice, looking at her. “She’s the most powerful unicorn I’ve ever seen that’s not an alicorn. That school almost ruined her,” he said darkly.

“Seriously?” Fancy Pants asked, looking over at his daughter.

“Beyond any doubt,” he replied. “She’s so powerful that I’ve honestly had trouble teaching her. I won’t let her practice new spells unless I’m there to throttle it if they get away from her. As strong as she is, a misfired spell could blow up the entire apartment.”

“And to think that we never knew,” Fleur de Lis sighed. “That she may never have found her true potential if she’d never have met you.”

“That’s reason enough to celebrate you coming to Canterlot,” Fancy Pants chuckled.

“Though I’m sure others aren’t quite so thrilled,” he grunted, looking at him. “What are they saying? About me?”

“There’s been some talk, but that’s why you have us, Star,” Fleur de Lis smiled. “We’ve been stamping out those rumors before they can take hold. After all, we know you. But I will say, North Star certainly isn’t giving up. His rumors have gotten progressively more and more nasty over the last few days. He’s been trying to work up the city based on the old folk tales.”

“Which is why I’ve always kept it a secret,” he sighed. “I’m sure the more gullible are hiding their foals about now. And checking them for bite marks every morning.”

Fancy Pants gave a bit of a dark chuckle. “The fangs do make you look a little intimidating, my young stallion,” he said with a glance.

“Which is nothing but a big fraud, once a pony gets to know you,” Fleur de Lis winked.

“Brother,” Starjumper called. Silver Moon trotted over from the cupcake icing party, licking a bit of icing off his nose. “Did Dad teach you the spell?”

“We’re still working on it, son,” Comet Tail answered. “The spell’s surprisingly complex, due to the fact that the spell has to be able to deal with books that have complex formats, like columns and pictures that break up the text. I’m still learning it.”

“I know,” Starjumper nodded. “The last four days gave me the chance to learn the spell. I didn’t really have much else to do when you guys weren’t there,” he shrugged. “I even used it a few times. It’s pretty useful even for a pony that doesn’t need it.”

“We’ve been working on it together,” Silver Moon said. “When he learns something, he passes it on to me. I can’t thank you enough for finding that spell, brother.”

“It’s half the reason I came to Canterlot, to find spells to send back home,” he said modestly. “You should buy a trunk, Dad, I have a bunch of books I’m sending home with you.”

“Stealing books out of the library, Starjumper?” Fancy Pants asked slyly.

Starjumper rolled his eyes, which made his parents laugh. “I taught him a spell a long time ago that copies the contents of one book or scroll onto a blank one,” Comet Tail replied. “To sell in the shop. That way I only had to buy one copy of a book.”

“Isn’t that illegal, Comet Tail?” Fleur de Lis asked.

“Can you prove the books I’m selling are counterfeit?” he retorted, which made her blink, then burst out laughing. “Did you shrink them, son?”

“Not yet,” he replied. “But even shrunk, it’s gonna take a big trunk. I’ve been spending a lot of the money Summer’s been paying me on blank books and scrolls. You’re gonna have to build at least two new bookshelves in the study to fit them.”

“You know the shrink spell?” Fancy Pants asked in surprise.

“It lets me keep a lot more inventory than other shops, we just shrink down all our backstock and store it until we need it,” Comet Tail said with a smile. “I think that and the reversal spell were the first spells I taught the boys when they started helping out in the shop.”

“When Dad goes out to collect new magic spells, he always looks for magic that we can use in the shop,” Silver Moon said. “To make things, or store things, or keep things orderly. There’s nothing wrong with us using our magic to make a profit.”

“Nothing at all,” Fancy Pants agreed with a nod. “And since there are so few unicorns in Baltimare, it gives you an edge.”

“Precisely,” Comet Tail chuckled. The sound of breaking crockery got all their attention, then the unicorn sighed. “And with those two in the shop, the mending spell is an absolute necessity,” he said, which made Summer Dawn’s parents laugh.

“I’ll go fix it,” Silver Moon said.

“Don’t bother, Summer Dawn knows the mending spell,” Starjumper said. And sure enough, the pieces of the broken bowl rose up off the floor and swiftly reassembled themselves back into a green glazed mixing bowl with a yellow stripe around its top.

“I don’t think Summer was ever that energetic,” Fleur de Lis chuckled.

“Clearly you don’t remember that time she broke the Heart of the Hippogryph,” Fancy Pants noted lightly.

“I couldn’t imagine growing up in a house like that, all by myself,” Starjumper mused, watching Summer Dawn as she helped the foals ice the first batch of cupcakes out of the oven.

“I was an only foal and grew up in that house as well, Star, and I can tell you that sometimes it can feel very lonely,” Fancy Pants answered. “You can go through ten rooms without seeing anypony, and everything is very beautiful, and very impressive, and I wasn’t allowed to touch anything. Once I got lost in the house,” he mused in a distant voice, “and it was almost all morning until they found me. I wasn’t about to have Summer feel like a guest in her own house the way I did when I grew up, so I’ve always encouraged her to have her friends over as much as possible, and I moved most of the really expensive things out of the rooms she uses most so she didn’t have to worry about the house stopping her from being a foal and having fun. Her problem was wandering outside of those rooms,” he chuckled.

“We always did want her to have a brother or sister, but things just didn’t work out that way,” Fleur de Lis sighed.

“I can sell you one of mine,” Comet Tail said in a serious, deadpan voice that made both of them snap their eyes to him, then they both exploded into laughter.

“I’d rather have a new one than a used one,” Fancy Pants grinned. “And one that’s not quite so…clumsy.”

“Oh, they’re not clumsy, Fancy Pants, they know exactly what they’re doing when they break things,” Silver Moon added, which made Starjumper laugh too.

“They know we can fix anything they break, so they don’t care about breaking it,” Comet Tail noted to his eldest son. “It took me almost a year to break you of that same habit, as I recall.”

“That may work on Dancer, but not Songbird. You can’t make her spend hours on end dropping a vase and mending it over and over and over and over,” he drawled.

“I’ll fix her by making her pay for everything she breaks out of her allowance,” Comet Tail said.

That made both Silver Moon and Starjumper splutter into sudden laughter. “She’ll never get another bit until she leaves the house!” Starjumper blurted.

“Then it saves me having to pay her allowance, doesn’t it?” he asked easily, which made Summer Dawn’s parents join in.

“Swindling your own daughter. Dad, you’re awful!” Silver Moon accused.

“Business, son, is business,” he replied unrepentantly.

All in all, his family and Summer Dawn’s family turned the first afternoon out of the hospital into an enjoyable diversion. They stayed the rest of the daylight hours, snacking on cupcakes and talking, then Fancy Pants had a fairly large and sumptuous meal delivered to the apartment for everypony, made by Withers and sent over. The conversation was about both big things and small, from talk about magic to life as shopkeepers in Baltimare to the workings of Canterlot society. Right about when his clock gave its first warning, the doctor from the hospital arrived with a nurse, and they prepared things for Starjumper’s transformation. After he changed, they applied his father’s healing tonic to his wing, then splinted the humorous bone in his wing to give it additional support. The other bones were healed enough to not need to be splinted, though they weren’t fully healed yet. The fingerbones and thumb claw in his wing were almost fully healed, and the radius and ulna in his wing were healed enough to be contiguous, but weren’t strong enough to handle the stresses that flight would place on them. Once that was dealt with, his doctor and his guests decided to call it a night…except for one.

As he said his goodbyes to his family—and surprisingly, new friends—Summer Dawn intentionally hung back. When the others were out of the apartment, she all but pushed him back to the bed and made him return to bedrest, then she tidied up the downstairs while he tried to make her stop. “Seriously, Summer, go home. I’ll be just fine,” he protested.

“I’ll go home when I’m sure you’re settled in for the night,” she replied calmly as she put a stack of books back in the bookshelves, her magic sending them into the void spaces in the stacks swiftly and surely.

“I was reading that,” he protested when she pulled the book off the writing desk and sent it back with the others.

“Then here,” she said, bringing it back and setting it on the moved writing desk. “What is it, anyway?”

“The next spell you’re going to learn,” he replied.

“Ooooh, what is it?” she asked with sudden interest.

He took a breath, then exhaled. “It’s a spell that makes a magical voice read a book out loud,” he replied.

She stopped almost dead in her tracks, giving him a long, almost frightened look.

“It’s a very complicated spell, and it’s a good introduction to the spellcasting techniques you need to learn to use divination magic,” he said in a steady voice, which wasn’t a lie. It was a complicated spell, and it was a good introduction to divination magic despite the fact that the spell wasn’t divination itself. He just didn’t tell her the entire reason he was going to teach it to her. “To teach you the mirror spell, you need to learn this one first. The same way you needed to learn shield spells to learn teleportation.”

The relief on her face was almost palpable, and it convinced him that he’d made the right decision not telling her that he knew she couldn’t read. “But I can’t teleport yet,” she said.

“It won’t take you very long,” he told her confidently. “Once you have the spell to where you can cast it, you’ll be practicing it while you move on to the next spell you need to learn. And most likely I’ll have your mom and dad here when we pick it up again,” he warned. “They want to learn the spell. And you don’t have to keep that a secret from them, I told them you’re learning it too.”

“Oh, good!” she said brightly. “That way we can all practice together! Like a family activity! You think my parents can cast it?”

“Your father already has, so him certainly. I’ll need to take measure of your mother before I know for sure about her. Is she good at magic?”

“Oh yes, really good. It’s just that she’s always been super-busy with her modeling career, so she never really had the chance to learn the advanced spells,” she replied. “So, when are we starting my lessons again? I’ve been going almost crazy wanting to practice!”

“Tomorrow,” he replied firmly. “It’ll give me something to do, and I can do it while on bedrest.”

“Awesome! I’ll be over right after they take this off!” she said eagerly, holding up her casted leg.

“Already?”

“Your dad’s healing tonic is awesome, Star,” she grinned. “I’m not going to be running any races, but the doctors said it’ll be healed enough by tomorrow morning to take off the cast. I think the doctors at the hospital are afraid he’ll run them out of business!”

He had to give a grim kind of chuckle. “I don’t think you realize how long it took him to make the tonic he brought here,” he said. “Or how much it cost to make it. I told you once before, that potion is neither easy nor cheap to make. It takes nearly two weeks to brew one small vial. What he used on you alone was probably worth close to five hundred bits and took him two months to make.”

“Wow, really?”

He nodded. “But while Dad’s a total shark when it comes to business, he’s very generous when it comes to family. Or friends,” he added, which made her smile.

“I do like him. And your mom. Shoot, your entire family,” she told him.

“I’m just amazed that your parents didn’t have a complete cow when you got hurt.”

“I told you, they don’t blame you. Maybe now you’ll finally believe me.”

“I guess,” he said in a bit of a dramatic sigh, rolling his eyes a bit. “Though I know it’s really not a good idea to believe you about most anything.”

She gave him a tart look. “Don’t you start with me, young stallion,” she said in an authoritative voice. “Don’t you ever forget, I’m older than you. That means I’m the boss!” He gave her such a direct, deadpan look that she just couldn’t keep it together. She burst into helpless laughter and cantered up to the bed. “You feel ready to get through the night on your own? Need anything?” she asked.

“I’m fine,” he told her. “I don’t need a nurse.”

“Well, you stay in bed,” she ordered. “The doctor said the more you rest, the faster you heal. The leftovers are in the cold box, and there are some cupcakes in the box on the counter. I’ll be over as soon as they take off my cast.”

“I’ll be here,” he said evenly. “Now go home, Summer.”

“I will, but not because you told me to,” she said with a smile and wink, then dared to lean over and push her muzzle up under his chin, nuzzling him a little. “See you in the morning!” she said exuberantly, then she trotted over to the balcony door and stepped out. She closed and locked it, and for the first time in almost a week, it left Starjumper completely alone.

He laid down on the bed, very carefully laying on his side so half of his broken wing was laying on the bed behind him—the rest was hanging over the bed, which forced him to fold his wing enough to take the stress off of it—and closed his eyes. He was tired, he could admit it, and his wing was a dull ache that struggled to punch through the soothing of the healing tonic doing its work.

But, this was a good step. An important step. He was healed enough to come home, healed enough to be left alone for the night, which meant a night’s uninterrupted sleep instead of being woke up every time a pony went up or down the hall outside his hospital room. Thestral senses made them very light sleepers. He was looking forward to a good long nap without being woke up, then he would study the book reading spell. He could easily study magic while a thestral, he just couldn’t cast any spells.

The first day of a very different life, he knew. The city of Canterlot knew his secret, and now he was out of the hospital where he’d start to experience the consequences of that. There might be good ones, but he was honestly expecting it to cause him nothing but trouble…and dreading it. North Star alone was going to be a royal pain in his flank, he just knew it, and there was no telling how many other ponies were too wrapped up in the old folk stories to even give him a chance. To them, he was a Lykan before he was a pony, a monster their stories told them drank the blood of foals to survive, could turn other ponies into were-ponies by biting them, and went into a murderous rage during the light of a full moon.

Of course, if those stories were true, then he’d be dead, since the stories also said that Lykans burst into flames when exposed to the light of the sun. But those ponies wouldn’t care about that. They’d believe what they wanted to believe and ignore everything else, no matter how much that everything else told them that the old stories were just that…stories.

But, he did feel a small bit of hope, and that was with Summer Dawn’s parents. They weren’t afraid of him, they actually seemed to like him, and he could admit that having them on his side was going to be a huge boon. They were the paragons of Canterlot society, so they had a tremendous amount of influence over just about everypony in town. They were already helping him by countering North Star’s rumors, and he was indebted to them, indebted to the point where he would be quite happy to teach them teleportation in return for their kindness.

But that sassy mare…oh no. She was paying. And seeing the adorably irritated look on her face when he told her that would make it worth it, even if he was tempting fate a little bit. She was starting to give back as good she got, and that made messing with her even more fun.

In that respect, he was all thestral. If there was no danger involved, it wasn’t worth doing. And there was a unique kind of danger involved in teasing Summer Dawn.

Summer Dawn. She really was something special, and not just because she was the most powerful unicorn he’d ever encountered. Everything about her was amazing, from her looks to her enthusiastic personality to her smile to the way she glared at him every time she realized he was subtly teasing her. She was dynamic, she was almost exhausting with her endless energy, and she constantly challenged him and surprised him both with her magical ability and her intelligence. She was, by far, one of the smartest ponies he’d ever known, and that was saying something given how smart his father and mother and siblings were. She learned so fast, so incredibly fast, and she was far more aware of the subtle realities of Canterlot society than he anticipated. She was brave, and she was kind. She was perceptive, and she was compassionate. She was sassy, and she was bold.

She was…perfect.

He opened his eyes, nearly glowing in the darkness of the room, then closed them again with a more serious expression. Yeah, she was perfect…and he was a Lykan. She was the richest pony in Canterlot, and he was an outcast. She had a bright future ahead of her, and he may be dead in a month. And the last thing he ever wanted was for her to end up dead along with him, because of him.

It was best for everypony if he never forgot that.

Whispers

And he thought that Summer Dawn was impressive.

It was clear to him now, her magic wasn’t some kind of fluke. As he sat on his bed in the center of the downstairs watching his two students, he could see why Summer Dawn was so immensely powerful…because both her parents were incredibly strong. Fancy Pants wasn’t that much of a surprise, given that he said he’d already cast the teleport spell, and that required strength. But what Starjumper didn’t expect was that he’d have considerably more potential than that, which he simply had never really developed. He’d lived most of his life concentrating on his social status, and honestly hadn’t been very serious about pursuing magical education. There were spells he’d wanted to learn and tutored for them, like teleportation, but he had done it in such a slapdash way that it seriously hindered his spellcasting skills. He hadn’t learned the techniques, tricks, and skills taught in the magic he didn’t want to learn that he needed to apply to the magic that he did want to learn That had hidden his true potential, even from himself.

But the real surprise was Fleur de Lis. She was just as strong as her husband, with formidable magical potential, which she had effectively ignored most of her life because of her modeling career. Unlike Fancy Pants, who had dabbled in learning advanced magic, Fleur de Lis had never even tried. Oh, she’d picked up a book on spells she wanted to learn from time to time, but had never really buckled down and seriously tried to learn any difficult magic..

But, it was curious to see how Summer Dawn’s interest in magic had sparked something in her parents. He’d spent most of the morning working with them, assessing their strength and learning how they learned, which would tell him how to go about teaching them. What worked for Summer Dawn wouldn’t work for her parents, since every pony had a different approach to learning, and it was absolutely imperative to use what worked for the student when it came to teaching high order magic. That was one of the biggest issues he had with the school, that they had their system and they held to it, and any student that couldn’t work within their system was considered inferior. Summer Dawn had absolutely withered in their system, since it focused on all of her greatest weaknesses. But if the school would have identified her strengths at an early age and worked with her using them, she would already be so far beyond him in both power and education that he would be taking lessons from her.

Both of them were a little perplexed by his approach, he could tell. He’d had Fleur de Lis cast the most basic spells most of the morning, after they brought Summer Dawn after she got her cast off, while Summer Dawn practiced staging teleportation spells and he worked with Fancy Pants to understand what he knew about teleportation, so he could undo all that and teach him the right way. When Fleur de Lis finally seemed to have enough of it and demand to know why she was casting light spells and levitation, he just gave her a steady look from the bed. “Magic isn’t a ladder, Fleur,” he told her. She’d told him he could call her that earlier that morning. “It’s a pyramid. The most basic, fundamental spells are the foundation upon which you build as you learn more complex magic. I can’t teach you a spell at the top of that pyramid until I’m sure that the foundation you’ve laid is going to support it. And from what I’ve seen, you have a fairly strong grasp on the basics of magic,” he said with an approving nod. “There are a few things you need to learn before I can start teaching you teleportation, but it shouldn’t take too long."

“I should hope so, I went to the same school my husband and Summer attend,” she smiled.

“I’d actually hold that against you, now that I’ve seen how that school works from the inside,” he said sourly. “I’m certain you’re strong enough to cast the spell. Now I just need to figure out the best way to teach you. And that’s mainly what you’re doing, showing me how you understand magic, so I know the best way to go about teaching you. What works for you may not work for Fancy Pants, or Summer Dawn. And when it comes to magic like teleportation, what matters most is how you learn it, not how I teach it.”

She gave him a long, appraising look, then chuckled. “You missed your calling, Star. You may be young, but you’re the best teacher I’ve ever seen.”

“Thank my father for that. He didn’t just teach me magic, he taught me how to learn magic. And I guess that lets me help others do it too.”

“Well, it worked. Now, can I do something more interesting than casting light spells?”

“Big mistake, Mom,” Summer Dawn teased from across the room.

“Hush, you, and back to work,” he said, looking in her direction. She giggled a little and stuck her tongue out at him. “Actually, no, wait,” he said, turning his head and using his magic to open a drawer in the kitchen cabinet. He pulled out a length of rope, then floated it over and laid it out on the floor in a circle. “Summer, come over here,” he called.

He ended up getting all three of them, as Fleur de Lis decided to join them at the couch as well. “I think it’s time for your first attempt,” he declared, which made her squeal in delight and jump up and down in place a few times. “You’ve staged the spell correctly enough times for you to try. But before we do, what’s the first rule of teleportation?”

“Mistakes hurt,” she recited.

“Mistakes hurt,” he nodded. “Are you ready for that? The first attempt is usually...messy.”

“I’m ready,” she declared. “Just cast that spell that won’t let my mane burn off.”

“Vain,” he accused, but he did grant her request, fortifying her mane and tail with magic so they wouldn’t burn off if she miscast the spell. “Alright, then,” he said. “Your destination is inside the circle. That’s your location. Your position is unchanged, but your orientation will be facing us. Your motion is nil. Set those parameters in your mind. Put as much detail into it as you can, Summer. The more detailed your perception of your landing point, the less taxing the spell,” he told her. “Picture everything. Not just where you’re going to land inside the circle, but everything around you. How close you’ll be to the wall, the grain of the stone in the floor, how many books are in the bookshelves flanking the window behind the circle. Every detail reduces the amount of energy the spell will drain from you. And that detail applies to your position when you reappear,” he continued. “Imagine exactly how you’re going to reappear, where your hooves are, where your tail is. The more complete your vision of your position, the easier the spell is to cast. And do not ever forget about motion, even if you don’t intend to change it. Remember, it’s the most dangerous of the three aspects you control in a teleport, so always define it as exactly as you can. Leave no room for interpretation. Ever. Take a moment and prepare yourself, Summer. When you’re ready, say so.”

She was quiet a moment. “I’m ready.”

“What kind of spell is this?”

“A snap spell,” she answered, her voice serious and focused. “I have to cast it as fast as I possibly can. The longer it takes, the more energy it takes to make it work.”

“What’s the one thing you don’t want to do?”

“Not put enough magic into the spell. That’ll make me come up short and really, really hurt.”

“Exactly. You can’t overcharge this spell, Summer. As long as your destination is firmly fixed in your mind, it won’t misfire if you overcharge it. So don’t hold back on this first attempt. Give the spell everything.”

That made Fancy Pants’ eyes widen a little, then he nodded in sudden understanding.

“Do you see your destination?”

“I do,” she replied, closing her eyes. “I can picture everything in my mind.”

“Do you know your position?”

“Yes. I can see how I’ll be reappearing. I’ve taken into account that I’ll be reversing my orientation so I’ll be facing back this way when I reappear.”

“Is your motion defined?”

“Yes. I’ll reappear stationary and unmoving.”

“Alright then, Summer. Give it a try.”

She didn’t waste any time. Her horn suddenly blazed with nearly incandescent pink magic as she put everything she had into the spell, a spell she built, charged, and then released in half a heartbeat…but not fast enough.

In a circular burst of pink magic, Summer Dawn vanished from beside the bed…and reappeared barely three feet away towards the circle on the floor, facing them. Smoke was wafting up from her mane and tail, and she staggered to the side on uncertain hooves, disoriented from the attempt. “Did I make it?” she asked woozily.

“Sort of,” he replied mildly, but he was honestly impressed. She’d managed to make the spell go off on her first attempt! That was seriously impressive! “You came up short.”

“Nuts,” she said, shaking off the disorientation. “What did I do wrong?”

“You were hesitant, you didn’t cast it fast enough. But that happens to everypony the first few times. As you get more comfortable with the spell, that problem will fix itself. It just takes practice, practice, and more practice. But, you did manage to teleport, Summer, and on your first try. Well done,” he smiled.

“I did? I did! I did it, Mom, Dad, I teleported!” she squealed in sudden glee, rushing over and giving them a hug, then daring to lean in and give Starjumper a noisy kiss on the cheek.

“So I gave up too soon,” Fancy Pants mused.

“Sort of. You weren’t taught the spell correctly, so it was always going to be almost impossible for you to use,” Starjumper told him. “But we can fix that, with hard work and a willingness to burn yourself like bad toast trying,” he added seriously. “This is not a spell for the meek, Fancy Pants. You will hurt yourself learning this spell, and do it over and over and over until you get it right. The question you need to ask yourself is, do you have the determination to see this through?” he asked firmly.

“If Summer can learn it, so can I,” he replied, giving his daughter a nearly challenging look. “Let me try to land in the circle, so you can see what I’m doing wrong.”

Starjumper nodded as Summer Dawn stepped out of the way. “Go for it, Dad!” she called encouragingly.

“Alright. Picture my destination,” the socialite said, mainly to himself. “Cast quickly. Cast with all my strength. Oh, wait! I don’t want to burn off my mane!” he said. “Would you mind terribly, my good lad?” he asked.

Starjumper smiled slightly, but did cast the spell to protect his mane. “And for good measure, it might be best if you don’t try wearing those clothes,” Starjumper added. His horn flared with golden magic, and the stallion’s tuxedo and monocle vanished in bursts of golden magic, reappearing on the divan behind the bed, neatly folded with his monocle laying atop them. “If you don’t specifically take them into account, you can teleport and leave them behind. And they might catch fire in transit, so best not tempt fate.”

“I say, I had no idea it could do that!” he said in surprise as Fleur de Lis’ eyes widened.

“This spell is far more versatile than you think, Fancy Pants,” he chuckled. “It’s only limited by your creativity.”

“Think of how quickly I could get dressed for a party,” Fleur de Lis laughed.

“It’s not quite as easy to put them on as it is to take them off,” Starjumper warned. “Besides, what I just did is something you don’t do until you’ve got some experience with the spell.”

“Alright then, back to it,” Fancy Pants said, staring intensely at the far side of the room, where the circle of rope was laid out. “Picture my destination. Inside the circle, I want to reappear inside the circle, facing back this way. Picture the destination. Cast quickly, put everything into it.” He took a deep, cleansing breath. “And, GO!”

In an impressively brief instant, Fancy Pants’ horn blazed with azure magic, then he vanished in a circular burst and that chiming sound that accompanied that visual display. He reappeared inside the circle, facing them, and he immediately gave a gasping cry and nearly had his legs collapse out from under him as black smoke sizzled up from several parts of his mane, tail, and back.

“You did it, Dad! You made it to the circle!” Summer Dawn said gleefully.

“I…think I need to have a...lie down,” he said woozily, then his eyes rolled back in his head and he fainted.

“Dear!” Fleur de Lis cried as Starjumper caught Fancy Pants in his magic before he hit the floor. “Is he alright?”

“He’ll be fine, that’s something of a common reaction for neophytes to the spell,” Starjumper said calmly. “You build up a resistance to it. He’ll only be unconscious for maybe a minute or two. Both my father and brother fainted at least once as they learned. That’s what I expected to have happen to Summer, but she cheated me out of my fun. Now I can’t hold it over her head for the rest of her life.”

Fleur de Lis laughed despite herself when Summer Dawn glared icily at him. “It’s not gonna happen now,” she predicted.

“You haven’t made it to the circle yet, either,” he said, giving her a shooing motion with a hoof as he floated Fancy Pants over to the couch and laid him down on it gently. “Your turn.”

Fleur went over to attend her husband as Summer Dawn squared off against the circle on the far side of the room. Her tail slashed behind her a few times as she lowered her head, almost as if she were about to do battle with the rope, which Starjumper found strangely amusing for some reason. “My destination is inside the circle,” she recited. “I see everything about it, everything around it. I know my destination. My position is unchanged, but I’ll be facing back in this direction, a change in orientation,” she said in a quiet, intense voice. “I can see myself inside the circle, standing just as I am now. I know where every hoof is, I know where my tail is. I will have no motion, I’ll reappear standing still.” She took a deep breath, then raised her head. “I’m ready.”

“Go.”

She cast the spell much faster this time, and vanished in a circular burst of pink magic. She reappeared inside the circle, but she reappeared nearly two feet off the floor; she hadn’t defined that she’d be standing on the floor when she teleported. She gave a shocked gasp and nearly fell when she hit the floor, then stumbled out of the circle, got it caught up and tangled around her foreleg and rear leg, and that made her trip and fall over. She laid there a second with smoke sizzling out of her protected mane, then rolled over on her back and gave a burst of embarrassed laughter. “I can’t believe I did that!”

“Maybe now you’re starting to appreciate just how dangerous this spell can be,” he told her evenly. “Put the circle back and try again, and don’t make that mistake again. You could have easily reappeared upside down and landed on your head.”

She gave him a surprised look, then untangled her legs and got back on her hooves. She used her magic to put the rope back in a circle, then trotted back over to him.

“Ohhhh, my,” Fancy Pants said from the couch.

“Feeling better, Fancy Pants?” Starjumper asked.

“The room is spinning. Did I make it?”

“You did, and well done, by the way,” he answered. “I think we can get everything straightened out and having you teleporting like you could do it your whole life in just a week or two. I think you’ve already started to see where your old tutor taught you wrong, and you’re correcting your mistakes.”

“I say, excellent,” he said with growing strength in his voice, sitting up. “And yes, I heard a lot of things different from what you told Summer than what I was taught. My tutor was much more concerned about the spell being built correctly that he didn’t care about how fast it was cast. But strangely, it worked for him. He could cast the spell slowly and teleport without danger.”

“And I’ll bet he couldn’t teleport very far, either. What, across the room? Maybe a block or so?”

Fancy Pants gave him a surprised look as he nodded.

“Your tutor hamstrung himself,” Starjumper told him. “I can teleport nearly fifty miles, and I’m not all that strong, because I know how the spell works. This spell is my special talent, Fancy Pants, I earned my cutie mark the first time I did it, so excuse me if I say that I probably know this spell better than any pony in Equestria. And I’m going to teach you and Fleur everything I’ve learned from my years of experience with it.”

“I say, my lad, teach on,” he said with a bright smile.

“We’ll get started as soon as Summer recovers. She’ll be practicing the spell while I explain the mechanics behind how the spell works for you and Fleur.”

“I’m ready now,” she said eagerly. “I so want to learn this!”

So, while Summer Dawn practiced teleporting into the circle, Starjumper explained the mechanics of the spell to his two newest students…and he felt strangely good about it. He rather liked both of them, and he did enjoy teaching. But most of all, he felt strangely liberated, able to talk to other ponies about the spell that defined his magical ability, the one spell he could do better than anypony else. Things got a little crowded in the apartment when his family arrived, having taken a tour of the Royal Palace given by Princesses Twilight and Starlight now that he was feeling better. They were able to do a little sightseeing now that they didn’t feel that they needed to spend every moment with him. Silver Moon and Comet Tail sat in with the training session as the fillies disrupted Summer Dawn’s practice, and Nightsong took control of the kitchen and started making lunch. After he finished explaining the quirks and limits of the spell, he made abundantly clear to warn them about the dangers the spell could pose. “Yeah, you might want to listen to the limits of changing motion part,” Silver Moon grunted. “I screwed that up so bad that I ended up in the hospital for a few days.”

“I warned you,” Starjumper said lightly.

“Well, I didn’t think it could be that serious. Boy, was I wrong.”

“How long did it take you to learn?” Fleur de Lis asked him.

“Five or six moons,” he answered. “He didn’t just teach me the spell, he and Dad taught me a bunch of other things about magic before I was ready for it. I’m not all that good at it, I can’t teleport nearly as far as Dad and Star can. But I have to admit, it’s beyond useful.”

“I’ll need to teach you staging, then teach you how to be aware of your surroundings so you can teleport safely,” Starjumper told her. “You know just about everything else.”

“What is staging?”

“Casting a spell without actually casting it, a way to practice complicated spells safely,” Comet Tail answered.

“What I had Summer Dawn doing when you first got here,” Starjumper nodded. “She was casting the spell in every way but having it actually go off. It’s a practice technique Dad taught us, and I can’t tell you how useful it is.”

“Oh, something like shell casting,” she said. “That’s the technique they taught in school.”

“It’s a viable technique, but Summer Dawn needed to learn staging due to the way she learns,” Starjumper said. “I’ll teach you staging and let you decide which technique works best for you. What matters most is what helps you learn best, Fleur. If you prefer shell casting to staging, then we go with shell casting.”

“And that’s what makes you such a good teacher, Star,” she smiled. “But there’s something else I want to learn, too. Shields. I’ve never been able to get them quite right, so maybe you can help me fix it.”

“I can teach you that,” he replied confidently. “Shields are a very good introduction to teleportation, both require an awareness of your surroundings and the ability to think and cast very quickly.”

“Hey now, Mom, he’s my tutor,” Summer Dawn protested. “You’re going to use up my tutor time!”

“Then pay me more,” Starjumper replied. “If my time is suddenly this valuable, I’m going with whoever offers the most gems.”

That caused half the room to break into laughter, especially with the very tart stare Summer Dawn leveled on him.

“I’d be happy to give you some help, son,” Comet Tail said. “I can help Fleur with staging while you’re working with Summer Dawn. It looks like she’s getting the hang of teleporting short distances.”

“She is,” he nodded, all five of them watching as she again teleported into the circle, and this time she did it with barely any visible indication that it was hard on her. There was no smoke wafting out of her mane, no disorientation or weakness. She looked around, nodded in satisfaction, then trotted back to her starting point to do it again.

It was a stark demonstration of just how gifted that mare truly was. To be able to teleport without side effects just hours after her first attempt, it showed just how amazing she was. He couldn’t look at her and not again be humbled and amazed at both her incredible power and her innate, instinctual ability to use magic.

“Star,” Fleur said, which made him blink and look back over at her. She had a slight smile on her face.

“Sorry. I was deciding if she’s ready for the next step. Given how easily she’s landing in the circle now, I think she is,” he noted.

“Now it’s gonna get messy,” Silver Moon chuckled.

“What’s the next step?” Fancy Pants asked.

“Teleporting to a place she can’t see,” Starjumper answered. “Trust me, Fancy Pants, doing that makes what she’s doing now look like she’s levitating a teacup. Dad, you have any healing tonic left over?”

“Quite a bit,” he replied. He looked to the side, and a small wooden box appeared on the writing desk in a circular burst of azure magic.

“Oh dear,” Fleur said worriedly.

“I told you the first rule of teleportation, Fleur. Mistakes hurt,” Starjumper said simply. “I know you’re tough enough to learn the spell, but trust me when I say that Summer’s more than tough enough. That mare has guts, just like her mother.”

She gave him a sudden smile at his praise not of her beauty, but of her fortitude.

“Summer,” he called, carefully getting up off the bed and walking towards the rope.

“Get back in bed!” she barked commandingly, pointing with her hoof.

“Don’t order me around, sassy mare,” he retorted as he picked up the rope with his magic, floating it over to him. As soon as it was close enough, both he and the rope vanished in a circular burst of golden magic, and he reappeared on the edge of the second floor, looking down at them. “Come up here. And I mean walk,” he elaborated.

She all but galloped over to the stairs and came up, and she followed him as he turned and walked into the middle of the bedroom. “You’ve gotten the hang of the basic application of the spell,” he told her. “And well done. That’s way faster than my father or brother managed it.”

She beamed at him.

“But that was the easy part. This is the part that will make you scream in frustration, and this is the hardest part of this spell to get right.” He walked to the middle of the room and floated the rope over, then laid to down on the floor near the far wall, right in the middle of the large panoramic window that gave him a view of the Royal Palace. “See where I put the rope?”

“Yeah.”

“Study that spot, Summer. That’s your new landing point.”

She advanced past him and looked around carefully, not just at the rope, but at the room around it, exactly as he taught her. After a few minutes, she turned and nodded to him.

“Alright.” He stepped up to her, then he teleported both of them back to the first floor, near where the bed was set. She blinked and looked around, then looked up at the second floor as she started to understand the objective of the task. “That’s right. Now you’re going to ‘port to a place you can’t see,” he affirmed. “And trust me, Summer, this is the part that you’re going to hate. Teleporting to a place you’re looking at is foal’s play compared to this. Now, close your eyes and picture your landing point. Put every bit of detail into it that you can, because this is where it’s going to matter,” he warned. “Tell me when you’ve got your landing point envisioned.”

She was quiet a long moment, her expression one of intense concentration. “I have it,” she finally said.

“Now hold that image as you define your position.”

“I’ve got it,” she relayed after a moment.

“And finally motion. Define it in your mind, as exactly as you can.”

“I have it.”

“Alright then, Summer, keep in mind that this time, you’re teleporting to place you can’t see, and you’ll be crossing through a solid object, the wall and floor. So if you come up short, you’ll be inside another object. And I told you what happens when you do that.”

“I’m not afraid,” she said in a distant voice.

“Then so be it. Whenever you’re ready.”

She took a deep breath, and that was all she waited. Her horn blazed with intense pink magic, then she vanished in a circular burst of energy. And not even half a second later, they all heard her pained squeal from upstairs.

“She came up short,” Silver Moon noted to her parents, to which Comet Tail nodded.

“Ow ow ow ow ow!!!” she cried from upstairs. “My tail’s on fire!” she screamed.

Starjumper returned to the bedroom in a burst of magic, then he saw that she did in fact have a small flame burning in her tail. She had a few singe marks on her coat as well, including a blackened nose. He put out the lick of flame by smothering it with magic, then he walked slowly over to her, still feeling a bit of a twinge in his chest. “You alright?”

“Yeah, give me a minute,” she said, trying to get her breathing under control. “Luna’s moon, that was not fun.”

“Welcome to getting it wrong. Now you know what to expect,” he told her, rubbing the soot away from her nose with a hoof. She looked up at him, and for a moment, he didn’t see anything but her lovely pink eyes, nearly the same color as her mother’s, but a little darker, like the sunrise on a summer morning.

She truly was so beautiful.

He blinked and snapped back to reality, then turned away from her maybe a little too quickly for it to look natural. “You feel up to another try?”

“In a second,” she replied. “I definitely feel scorched.”

“Like I told you, any time you get moved against your will in the otherspace, it creates a massive amount of resistance,” he said evenly. “Take all the time you need and come back down when you’re ready.”

Before she could answer, he vanished in a circular burst of golden magic and reappeared back on the bed, laying sedately on his belly.

“She alright?” Fleur de Lis asked.

“Just a little singed,” he replied. “She came through it much better than Dad did the first time he did that.”

“I had second degree burns,” Comet Tail grunted.

To Summer Dawn’s eternal credit, her painful miss did not discourage her. She came down the steps and returned to her starting point with a resolute look on her face, then turned to face the open area where second floor sat over the far wall. “Okay, okay, okay, start from the beginning,” she said to herself. “Destination.”

The next hour or so increased his respect for Summer Dawn exponentially. She came up short again and again, singed herself again and again to the point where the apartment was starting to smell like burnt fur, but she wouldn’t quit. She’d clean off the soot, take a moment to recover, then come right back down and try again. She only stopped when Starjumper made her, to take a break so she could rest a little bit and also eat the lunch Nightsong prepared for them. She cooked black root stew, a thestral specialty, and it surprised Summer Dawn and her parents a little bit. “Wow, this is spicy!” Summer Dawn blurted after taking a bite.

“Thestrals like everything to be an adventure, ducky, even our food,” she grinned in reply. “Be lucky I didn’t make you firebean casserole.”

“Well, I like it,” Summer Dawn smiled back.

“This is good,” Fleur de Lis agreed.

“I do agree, this is quite good, Nightsong,” Fancy Pants agreed.

“And here I thought Canterlot unicorns wouldn’t have any sense of taste,” she smiled.

“I guess this is as good a time to tell you as any, son, we’ll be leaving tomorrow afternoon,” Comet Tail announced. “We’re certain you’ll be fine now, and we’re three days overdue to reopen the shop. No doubt most of our customers think something must be wrong.”

“That’s fine, Dad, I didn’t expect you to stay all winter,” Starjumper answered. “And you’re right, I’ll be just fine. With as much tonic as you left, I should be fully healed in about a week. Well, everything but my wing, anyway.”

“And we’ll be here to make sure he takes it easy until he’s well,” Summer Dawn declared.

“We’ll keep an eye on things,” Fancy Pants promised. “Has the Princess said when you’ll be returning to school?”

“Monday, though I’d rather just not go back,” Starjumper grunted.

“Hiding in the apartment is the last thing you need to do, Starjumper,” Fleur de Lis told him. “If you want the ponies of Canterlot to accept you, then you have to let them see you. Interact with you. See that the stories are wrong. If you spend all your time hiding in here, you just give them a reason to think that you have something to hide.” She saw his expression, then gave him a gentle look. “I know it’s going to be hard for you. You’ve lived your entire life hiding something, and now everypony knows about it. We’ll be here for you, Starjumper. Remember that. We stand with you, and we’ll do everything we can to make everypony in Canterlot see the pony we know, not what the old stories say you are.”

“And that’s half the reason we’re alright with leaving,” Comet Tail said seriously. “He couldn’t have asked for better friends in your family.”

“After everything he’s done for Summer, not to mention us, of course we’re here for him, Comet,” Fancy Pants said easily. “Are you going home for Hearth’s Warming Eve, Starjumper?”

“I hope so. I should be healed enough to fly by then,” he answered. “I’ll fly down the night before and fly back the next night.”

“Well then, I guess you won’t accept if we invite you to our house,” he chuckled.

“I dunno, you may have better food,” he said with a glance towards Nightsong. And she naturally rose to the bait.

“If you think you’ll enjoy yourself more with Summer Dawn and her parents, you go right ahead, pup,” she declared. “That’s just more stuffed ice peppers for the rest of us.”

“Another thestral dish?” Fleur de Lis asked.

“Our traditional Hearth’s Warming meal,” Comet Tail answered. “It’s a major hassle to get the ice peppers, but it’s worth it. They only grow in Gryphony, the griffon kingdom on the eastern continent.”

After lunch, almost as if it was some planned move, both his parents and Summer Dawn’s parents left the apartment. Silver Moon took the fillies out into the city, which left them to their own devices. And that was practice. Starjumper laid on the bed and read, keeping a passive eye on his student as she practiced teleporting to a place she couldn’t see…and finding out that it was in no way as easy as teleporting across the room to a place she could see. But he had to give it to her, she did not stop. Even when she was covered in singe marks and had several first degree burns, her mane and tail were dusky from all the soot and ash clinging to the hair, she kept trying, and kept trying, and kept trying. He was about to make her stop just out of mercy before she finally managed to reappear inside the circle, and when she did, she gave a nearly ear-splitting scream of joy and almost broke her foreleg again when she slipped trying to run down the stairs and careened off of them. Luckily for her, Starjumper was paying enough attention to catch her with his magic, setting her on the floor. “I did it! I did it! I DID IT!” she screamed, loud enough to make him wince given she was right beside him for that last shriek, and she made him wheeze and wince when she nearly slammed into him trying to hug him.

“Well done,” he told her with a wince. “Now let go of me before I start coughing up blood.”

She gave him a startled look, then let go of him hastily and backed off. “Are you okay?”

“Better than you are at the moment,” he said, regarding her sorry appearance. “You really need to learn to take a moment before you try again. And I think this is a good place to stop,” he decided. “You’re tired, you’re a bit toasted, and you smell like a fireplace.”

“I don’t care about that,” she said quickly. “And I’m not that tired! I can practice some more!”

“You can practice at home,” he told her with a steady look. “You need practice with the spell, you still aren’t casting it fast enough. So mark out a landing point in your room and practice teleporting to it, someplace you can see. Work on your casting speed for now, that’ll help when you go back to trying to ‘port to a place you can’t see.”

“What about you?”

“I’m going to take a nap,” he told her. “And Summer.”

“What?”

“Congratulations. You can teleport.”

She gave him a smile so bright that it could have lit up Tarterus.

“And since the whole city knows what I can do…I suppose there’s no reason for you to keep it a secret,” he added casually. “Now that you’ve managed to cast the spell, at this point they can’t stop your lessons else you’ll hurt yourself.”

“Are you saying I can show off to my friends?”

“A little,” he said, which made her explode into laughter.

“If you’re tired, you get some sleep. I’m gonna go find Crystal and Berry and show them my new trick, then get in some more practice.” she grinned at him.

“Have fun,” he said with a yawn, showing off his fangs. “But you might wanna take a bath before you go out. You look like you lost a fight with a dragon.”

She gave an earnest laugh, then trotted over to him. “Thank you for trusting me enough to practice on my own.”

“Now that you’ve tasted what failure feels like, I’m sure you won’t get too adventurous,” he said mildly, which made her laugh and nod in agreement. “Make sure you take a vial of healing tonic with you. You’re going to need it.”

“I do feel a little burned in a couple of places,” she agreed, turning her head. A glass vial rose out of the box sitting on a table near the door, holding his father’s supply of healing tonic.

“Make sure you eat something after using it,” he reminded her.

She gave him an earnest, brilliant smile, then floated a folded blanket over, spread it out, then laid it over him. “I’ll see you in the morning,” she told him. “We’ll get in a little practice before we see your family off on the train.”

“Alright.”

She hurried out of the apartment, leaving him to his peace and quiet, which he’d felt was a bit in short supply since his injury. He was the kind of pony that liked his space, even when he was living back at home, and the peace and quiet let him organize his thoughts as he rested on the bed. He wasn’t lying about being a little sleepy, a side effect of the tonic since it used much of his own energy to heal him. He closed his eyes after another yawn and settled his head on the bed between his forehooves.

The balcony door opened, and he opened his eyes and nearly jumped to his hooves on the bed with Princess Celestia strode in. She was tall, so incredibly tall, and regally beautiful. Her horn glowed with the same color magic as his own as the door closed behind her, her lovely pink-irised eyes turned in his direction. “It’s about time they left you alone,” she said in a rich, gentle voice as he scrambled down off the bed, then bowed awkwardly. “And how do you feel, Starjumper? Better, I hope?”

“Princess Celestia! What are you doing here?” he blurted.

“You, my young pony,” she replied in a stately cadence, walking towards him.

“I already told Princess Twilight—“

“This has nothing to do with that,” she replied. “This has to do with the treaty, and what may come next. Since this affects you, I felt it was only fair to speak with you about it before any decisions are made.”

He looked up at her when she reached him. “The thestrals are threatening war.”

She gave a single nod, then flicked her muzzle towards the bed. “Back in bed with you. You’re still mending.”

“Yes ma’am,” he said, getting back in bed and laying down. She sat down on the divan facing him, taking up the entire thing with her tall, elegant body.

“As you mentioned, the missive we’ve received from the Nightlands this morning is not encouraging,” she told him. “The Night Queen is threatening to attack if we do not turn you over to them. But understand this, my young one. We will not, under any circumstance, give you up. I will not be party to the ending of an innocent life,” she declared with vehement nobility.

“I appreciate that, your Highness,” he said honestly.

She gave him a gentle smile. “That means that there is a question that I must ask. Where do you stand in this, my young one? Will you abide by any future treaty we make that confines you to Equestria?”

“I’ll do whatever you need me to do, your Highness,” he replied immediately.

“But what do you want to do?” she asked.

“I want them to leave me alone,” he replied immediately. “And if that means I’m confined to Equestria, then that’s fine with me.”

She gave him a long look, then nodded. “I’ll inform the others of your position. And what of living in Equestria now, Starjumper? I’ve been told that your secret has been revealed. Are you alright?”

He gave her a sincere look of appreciation. “I don’t know what’s going to happen next,” he said honestly. “I’m not sure they’ll accept me, your Highness. Superstition has a way of upsetting the common sense of even the most rational ponies. All it’s going to take is just one pony that simply won’t accept that the old stories are wrong to make my life a nightmare.”

“There’s something you can do about that, Starjumper, and that’s show them that they have no reason to believe the old stories,” she told him. “Hiding in your apartment is not the way to go about forging a life for yourself. That’s why I fully support Princess Twilight’s decision to have you continue to attend school.”

He considered telling her about North Star and his crusade, but decided against it. That wasn’t really her problem, and he wasn’t going to burden her with it. Besides, Fancy Pants and Fleur de Lis seemed quite able to deal with it.

“That…won’t be easy,” he said quietly. “I’m already dreading Monday.”

“I know, and I understand. You’ve spent your entire life living a certain way, and now everything has changed. I can imagine how frightening it must feel,” she said with compassion. “Like the anchors of your life have been pulled up and now they flail in the winds of a tornado.”

He gave her a surprised nod.

“All I can tell you, my young Lykan, is hold fast to the anchors that remain,” she told him. “And it seems that you have quite a strong one in Summer Dawn and her family. They are good ponies, Starjumper, and your friendship with them will not steer you wrong,” she suggested in a gentle yet sober voice. “How goes Summer Dawn’s tutoring?”

He gave her a long look. “You know everything, don’t you?”

She just smiled at him.

He could only shake his head, which made her give a titter of laughter. “She not only managed to teleport today, but she’s competent enough to let her practice on her own. She’s…she’s just incredible, your Highness. Really, I shouldn’t be the one teaching her. She should be studying under you. What she can do, what she’s capable of…it’s far beyond anything I could ever hope to do. There are some things I simply can’t teach her. She needs somepony like you to guide her.”

“And I’ll be happy to help her down that road when she comes to it,” she told him. “Until then, it’s best if you are the one that leads her to that new path. You understand her, my young pony. I dare say better than any of her teachers.”

“Did you know about her?”

“I’ve met her a few times, but I didn’t know the extent of her talent,” she answered. “Contrary to what you may believe, Starjumper, I don’t know everything,” she smiled. “But I must say, I’m even more impressed by your ability to teach than her ability to learn. I think, after school, that you and I might be discussing you staying in Canterlot as a teacher.”

“As long as I stay far away from your school,” he said honestly. “Seriously, your Highness, you need to go take a long look at it. They nearly ruined Summer Dawn.”

“And what do you find objectionable about it?”

“They teach a system,” he replied. “A system that has no room for any pony that won’t fit in it. So, while it works great for the ponies that excel under that system, it’s actually harmful to ponies like Summer Dawn. They taught her from an early age that because she can’t learn under their system, then she’s a bad student. She’s not, she just learns in a very different way than the way they teach, but they didn’t care about that. They never tried to understand why she couldn’t learn, they just wrote her off because she wasn’t compatible with their treasured process. That kind of inflexibility is destructive.”

She gave him a long look, then nodded in understanding. “I think while I’m here, I’ll have a long talk with the Headmistress,” she told him. “Summer Dawn proves that your argument has merit, Starjumper. But, if you don’t want to work for the school, perhaps I could convince you to remain as a private tutor? There are bound to be other young ponies in Canterlot struggling with a system that does not work for them. I’m sure you can teach them.”

“I…I guess. I mean, I actually don’t mind tutoring that much, Summer Dawn makes it kinda fun. And I suppose if I work on my own schedule, I can continue my own studies while I’m tutoring other ponies.”

“I dare say that you’re going to have quite a long line of students once your work with Summer Dawn and her parents becomes common knowledge in Canterlot,” she smiled. “You have a gift, my young pony, the gift to make others understand very complex magical subjects in very simple terms. If you can teach a spell like teleportation to ponies not regarded in Canterlot for their magical power, ponies like Summer Dawn and her parents, there is no doubt in my mind that they will fight over who contracts your services first. And with a reputation like that, one of accomplishment and respect, I believe that you’ll find that what you are won’t matter so much as who you are.”

“But Summer has far more talent than I do.”

“They do not know that, Starjumper,” she smiled, a bit impishly. “From their point of view, you have taken a marginal student and turned her into the jewel of her class.”

“Well…I guess. But it seems almost like a lie.”

“How long have you lived in Canterlot, young one?” she asked pointedly.

He gave her a surprised look, then laughed despite himself. “Why do you let that silliness go on?”

“Because it keeps them out of trouble,” she replied with a slight smile. “So long as they cause mischief for each other, it keeps them from causing mischief outside of Canterlot. Besides, at my age, keeping tabs on their shenanigans is a pleasant distraction from the daily routine. They amuse me, so I permit them their silly games.”

He just had to laugh. “You are truly wiser than I ever expected, your Highness,” he told her.

She smiled. “Spoken like a thestral,” she winked. “My advice to you, young one, is to not hide. Not in this apartment, nor what you are capable of. The need to keep it a secret as a potential weapon against the thestrals is past. Let them see who you are, and your magic is a part of who you are. In a way, it defines you,” she said, looking at his cutie mark meaningfully. “Let them see the pony I have grown to admire over the last few years.”

He blushed at her praise.

“I know it won’t be easy for you. You are a pony of secrets, and with your secret exposed, it has undercut one of the foundations of your life. All I can tell you is that it’s best for you to try. The worst thing you can do is withdraw from Canterlot and hide in your apartment, Starjumper. It will make you look like you have something to hide. And given what the townsponies know about you now, that is not a wise thing to do. You are a Lykan, Starjumper Astra,” she proclaimed in a strong voice. “You have never been ashamed of who you are. Do not be ashamed of it now.”

He gave her a long look, then nodded. “I’ll do my best. And thank you, your Highness. For believing in me.”

“You make that easy, Starjumper,” she smiled, climbing off the divan and walking up to him. He looked up at her almost adoringly, noting that she tilted her head almost quizzically as she looked down at him. “I must admit. I think you look better as a thestral,” she told him. “It does suit you.”

“It’s the eyes, your Highness,” he chuckled. “They just don’t go very well with a unicorn horn.”

“You just might be right. Now, since I think I interrupted your nap, I’ll leave you to get some rest. I believe I’m going to have a little chat with Headmistress Roseglass before I leave Canterlot.”

“Where are you going, if I might ask, your Highness?”

She gave him a steady look. “The Nightlands,” she replied. “There is something going on over there, my young one, something more than we can see. What the Night Queen is doing is illogical, and there must be a deeper reason for her actions, something she is hiding from us. Both Luna and I are going to go investigate.”

“Be very careful, your Highness, especially right now.”

“We will,” she told him. “And thank you for your concern.”

“Safe journey, your Highness.”

“Thank you. And keep your chin up, Starjumper. Things are going to work out. I have a good feeling,” she smiled, then she turned and strode on her long, long legs towards the balcony door. It opened by her magic and she stepped through, then turned and gave him a final gentle smile as she looked back at him as the door closed.

He laid back down and closed his eyes, considering her visit. She was right, of course. Summer Dawn told him the same thing, but to hear it from her, that made it much more, well, serious. If he wanted to be accepted by Equestria, he had to show them they had nothing to fear. He was the same pony now he was before they knew what he was, so what he should do is go right back to his routine, a routine so regimented and predictable that ponies were joking that they could set their clocks by his movements. It would carry the risk of ponies knowing where to find him, but it would also show them that he had nothing to hide, and that he wasn’t afraid.

Well, he was, a little bit. He wasn’t afraid of what ponies may say or do, he was afraid that they wouldn’t see him for who he was. He was afraid of spending the rest of his life hiding on top of a mountain in a huge, empty house he shaped out of stone, a house that would be empty, a house that would be lonely.

A house without Summer Dawn.

He gave another side and shook his head a little. He had to get that mare out of his head. By the Summer Sun Celebration, he would be done teaching her, and it was best for both of them if they stayed away from each other. She had a bright and promising future ahead of her as one of the most prominent magicians in all of Equestria. She would have it all; money, fame, power, admiration, and respect. And he…was a Lykan. He could only bring her down. And besides, he’d be busy himself.

The idea of tutoring…that didn’t seem all that bad. He could pick and choose who he taught, and could teach on his own time. All he had to do was make sure that he earned enough to survive in Canterlot.

No, he didn’t even have to do that. The steep mountainsides above and below Canterlot weren’t owned by anypony. He could use the stoneshaping spell to carve out a place for himself on the cliffside above the city, high enough that the entry to his home wasn’t easy to see but giving him quite the commanding view of the city. He could shape the entry so a pegasus pony would have a bear of a time trying to get in by using an extremely narrow vertical tunnel, something that he could easily navigate by walking up and down the walls.

That idea truly appealed to him, so much so that as soon as he could fly again, he was going to go scout out potential locations. And once he found the ideal spot, he’d begin shaping his home out of the rock. He could get it done in just a couple of weeks, using the stone from inside the space as material for transfiguration, turning it into furniture. He could even pull in some clouds and use them inside, since he could walk on clouds like a pegasus pony as a thestral or a unicorn. He had the chance to make something uniquely his own, tailored to him and his rather unique aspects.

It was enough to rouse him out of his desire to take a nap. He floated over a large piece of parchment and set it on the writing desk, then brought over a quill and started sketching out a rough idea of the floorplan for the house, which would be truly three dimensional. He had almost unlimited space available since it would all be inside the mountain, and he would need to design the initial house with the idea that he would be expanding it later. He just had to design in some ventilation for the deepest rooms so the air didn’t become stale, and that would be relatively easy by using physics and the properties of warming air to create a vertical ducting system that would circulate air through the house by pulling in cooler air from outside along the bottom of the dwelling, where it would heat up inside and rise, then exit through vents at the top. All he needed were permanent heat sources within the ducting system to heat the air and induce motion, and that wouldn’t be all that hard. He knew of a spell that could be permanently enchanted into a crystal that made it radiate a pleasant heat. That would heat the abode in the winter by warming the air flowing in, and in the summer, he could reverse it by using the reverse of the spell, creating crystals that would chill air, which would cause the airflow to reverse to flow from top to bottom.

He could even install flowing water inside. There were three different streams that flowed from the mountaintop down to Canterlot by waterfall, and he could tap into that water without diverting the main flow. He could shape a pipe that would draw only the water he needed from one of the streams, using a gravity feed system that would cause the pipe to stop drawing water once the holding tank to which it was connected reached a certain water level. He had enough experience with plumbing from the indoor water they had in the shop to build a simple water system that would feed water to his kitchen for cooking and drinking. He could even install a drain system for the waste water that would send it…well, he’d figure that out when he found the ideal spot. He didn’t want to send any wastewater down to Canterlot, so he might have to build a wastewater tank and build a rather long pipe system that would send the wastewater to another side of the mountain…or send it under Canterlot and let it drain coming out of the rock face under the city. There were any number of storm drain and sewer pipes that let out under the city, and he could just join his wastewater pipe to that system. Trash, that wasn’t going to be a problem at all, thanks to transfiguration magic. He could just permanently transfigure the trash into something less trashy, even use it as a raw material, or just transfigure it into water and send it down the drain. A little magic would make it easily managed.

The bathroom situation…he could manage that as well. But, that would require a little magic, just like the trash.

Yes, he could do it. He could create a large, expansive dwelling inside the mountain that would have ample fresh air and be very comfortable no matter what season. It would be built by him, for him, catering to his unique needs and comforts. And he wouldn’t have to pay any pony a single bit. The cliff over the city wasn’t owned by anypony, and the Princesses wouldn’t complain so long as he didn’t drastically reshape the rock face. He could make everything he needed himself, using the stone left behind as he excavated the rooms as the material from which he’d transfigure his furniture and other necessities. His home would be discreet, secretive, just like him, a grand estate of shaped stone and aesthetics unique to him, hiding the truth behind a natural wall of rock.

The Waterfalls…ha! He could build a vast dwelling three times the size of the Waterfalls inside the mountain, shaped out of the rock, a place so large that would almost be ludicrous. And the beauty of it would be, nopony would ever know it was there.

He got so engrossed in the idea of it, the challenge of it, the fun of it, that he completely forgot about Monday.

But Monday certainly didn’t forget about him.

Right on time, he stepped out of his apartment door, took a deep breath in the chilly winter air, and then shook himself and got down to business. His chest was almost completely healed, it only felt a little tight when he moved certain ways, but his wing was still in a splint for the next five days. And after it came out of the splint, he wouldn’t be flying for at least two weeks due to the fact that the bone needed time to fully heal, so it was strong enough to withstand the stresses flight placed upon it.

He came down the steps after locking the door, and again, that feeling of utter vulnerability swept over him, nearly made him teleport right back into the apartment. He was outside, he was alone, and he had this irrational feeling that there was a pony behind every corner and curtain in every window, and they were all watching him. Judging him. Sharpening their pitchforks. While the three ponies visible on the Promenade didn’t stop and stare at him, he still felt like every eye in Canterlot was upon him. He turned away from the school once on the wide avenue and headed for Donut Joe’s, which was on the corner of the Promenade and Gem Street, across the corner from the Corner Café. Two ponies passed him walking the other way, and he tried his best not to stare at them, watching to see if they stared at him. He’d never seen them before, and they seemed to be too involved in talking with each other to pay much attention to him.

He had to resist the urge to look back at them after he passed to make sure they didn’t turn around and start following him.

His heart wouldn’t slow down. He had to struggle to keep his composure. He felt like eyes were upon him behind every window and every open doorway. Every step away from the safety and security of his apartment was like walking through Tarterus with all its imprisoned beasts unchained, stalking him from the shadows. It was an anxiety he’d never felt before, and he did not like it, not one bit. If every day was going to be like this, he wasn’t sure he’d survive the strain of being here until school was over.

And then, everything just changed when he saw Summer Dawn trot down the Promenade, then stop by the door to Donut Joe’s. She had her school saddlebag with her and was talking with Crystal Bell and Berry Cream, her two best friends. She gave him a bright smile as he approached, moving almost unnaturally quickly towards her, as if being in her physical presence would somehow protect him. “I told you he’d be here, Berry,” she said lightly. “Star is very grumpy if he doesn’t get his morning coffee.”

“Summer. Berry Cream, Crystal Bell,” he said guardedly, giving them a slight nod.

“Don’t worry, Starjumper, we know. And here we are,” Crystal Bell said with a smile. “Summer thought you might like some company walking to school today.”

“Any friend of Summer Dawn is a friend of ours,” Berry Cream declared, giving him an earnest smile.

“I appreciate that,” he said honestly, looking down at them. “So, no wearing a metal collar?”

The two of them laughed. “Those are just old stories. We’ve known you for moons, Starjumper, more than you probably think we do because Summer talks about you all the time. You’re the same pony now you were before we knew. If anything, it explains a whole lot.”

“Yup,” Crystal Bell nodded. “Now we know why you always just seem to vanish close to sunset, and would never come out at night. You couldn’t let anypony see you the other way.”

“More or less. It just made things much less complicated,” he answered, feeling a tremendous amount of relief. Here, at least, were two ponies that weren’t running away screaming. Granted, they were Summer Dawn’s friends, so they had a biased viewpoint, but it was a start. And it gave him a tiny bit of hope.

He felt even more hopeful when Summer Dawn almost pushed him into the diner. Donut Joe, the aged, scruffy stallion, gave him a nod as he approached the counter and set a cup of coffee and a bag on the counter. “It’s good to see you again,” he said as Starjumper set three bits on the counter for them. “Now I won’t be bagging donuts that don’t have a buyer.”

“Thank you,” he said quietly, lifting the bag and the cup with his magic.

“See ya tomorrow,” he said with a reassuring look.

Summer Dawn gave him an I told you so look as they turned back for the door. “So, did you tell them?” he asked.

“I showed them,” she grinned.

“I knew you couldn’t resist showing off.”

“You told me to!” she retorted, which made the two mares laugh.

“I can’t believe you taught her that, Starjumper!” Berry Cream said. “I mean, not even most of our teachers can teleport!”

“It’s what she hired me to teach her,” he said evenly. “We kept it a secret to keep her teachers from trying to stop her. I knew she could do it, but they don’t believe in her the way I do.”

Both Berry Cream and Crystal Bell gave him sly little looks as Summer Dawn beamed.

“Why would they try to stop her?”

“I told you, Berry, the spell can be dangerous if you mess it up. Super dangerous,” Summer Dawn told her. “They’d no doubt think I’d hurt myself with it, maybe even kill myself.”

“It’s not a spell for the meek,” Starjumper agreed. “Did you tell them the first rule?”

“Mistakes hurt,” Summer Dawn said with a chuckle. “And boy, do they ever.”

“You didn’t seem to have any problems doing it when you showed us.”

“I did the easiest thing you can do, just ‘ported a few feet across the room. If I’d have tried to teleport out onto the balcony, you’d have seen something a whole lot different. I’m still having trouble teleporting to a place I can’t see. It’s way harder.”

“Practice will fix that,” Starjumper assured her, taking a sip of his coffee.

It was so much of a relief to have Summer Dawn and her friends with him as they walked to school, it almost felt normal…but only almost. As they neared the school, he noticed the stares. The students heading for school themselves were staring at him, and Summer Dawn had to gently herd him onto the campus when a large throng of ponies standing on the green near the Promenade all stopped talking and stared intently at him, then started whispering among themselves. Starjumper did his best to ignore them, but he could almost feel their eyes on him as they passed, and turning his flank to them, putting them in a position where they could potentially attack him, was far harder than he thought it would be. His tail slashed behind him like an angry snake, betraying his disquiet.

“I’m thinking maybe it was a good idea we walked with him,” Berry Cream said in a low voice as they passed two more clusters of students, who all stared at them as they whispered behind their hooves.

“I won’t be walking tomorrow,” Starjumper said in a dark voice.

“I don’t think I’ll blame you if you don’t,” Summer Dawn agreed. “I think Nova got here early and started spreading rumors.”

When they entered the building, Starjumper noticed not only the stares, but the sudden need for the other students to be as far across the hallway from him as possible as they passed. He’d expected a negative response when he came out, but to see it, to experience it, it hurt a lot more than he thought it would. These same ponies didn’t even glance at him as he walked the halls just a couple of weeks ago.

They entered the classroom to dead silence. Every head in the room turned in his direction when he entered behind Summer Dawn, then they went up to the top tier and took their usual seats. But today, Crystal Bell and Berry Cream sat with them, Crystal Bell to his immediate right and Berry Cream sitting on the other side of Summer Dawn, flanking them, acting as a cushion so no other pony could sit close to them. And he felt a strange sense of appreciation when Strider picked up his saddlebag, got up from his desk on the second tier, then came up to the top tier and sat on the far side of Crystal Bell, which filled up the row and prevented any other pony from sitting on the tier. Strider looked at him around Crystal Bell and gave a single, simple nod, which he returned with honest gratitude in his eyes.

And then the relief evaporated like dew in a bonfire when Nova and his two stallion sycophants entered the classroom. He gave a melodramatic gasp and stopped by the tiers, then pointed at Starjumper with his hoof. “What is that monster doing here?” he said loudly, looking towards Professor Frostmane.

“Awaiting the start of class,” she replied in an even voice, giving him a strong look. “And you will sit down, Mister Nova.”

“I’m not staying in the same classroom with that Lykan!” he nearly screamed, clearly enjoying every second of it.

“You have two choices, Mister Nova. You will sit down, be quiet, and attend class like everypony else, or I will inform the Headmistress that you disobeyed a direct order from a professor. And by the terms of your probation, that will result in your immediate expulsion. Now make your decision.”

He gave her a dark, savage scowl, clamping his mouth shut and approaching his customary desk on the first tier. But the look he shot up at Starjumper was one of eager, giddy venom.

Starjumper could see his angle. Nova was going to harass him, bait him, aggravate him until he lost his temper and did something, then he was going to run through Canterlot hamming up his victimhood, which would further convince the gullible that Starjumper was an out of control monster. And when he wasn’t actively antagonizing Starjumper, he’d be telling everypony he could find how Starjumper was a bloodthirsty monster, a villainous figure from pony folklore that many parents had used to scare their children into obedience.

And now that he knew Nova’s game, he could easily thwart it. And if he set his pieces on the board the right way, Nova would be the one thrown out of school, not him.

Any sympathy he had for the stallion based on his overbearing father evaporated with the look of dreadful anticipation on Nova’s face when he looked up at him. If that was how he wanted to play this game, so be it. Starjumper had far more discipline than that spoiled brat. If anypony was going to get expelled for losing his temper, it was going to be Nova.

Class began, and Starjumper was immediately bored. They were still doing transfiguration spells, and since he was out of class on Friday, he missed his chance to test out and had to suffer through an entire week of interminable boredom before he had another chance. But thankfully, Frostmane didn’t really pay much attention to him when he was in class, which allowed him to read what he wanted…which usually kept him busy, but not today. He couldn’t help but notice the other students in the class almost constantly glancing over their shoulders in his direction, as if he would pounce on them at any moment.

Just before lunch, however, Frostmane seemed to decide to inject herself into the situation, but doing it subtly. “Mister Starjumper,” she called. “I’ve been told that you know how to teleport.”

“It’s my special talent, ma’am,” he replied evenly. It wasn’t a big surprise in the class, however, since stories of his fight with the thestrals had spread all through the city.

“If you would, report to my office after you eat lunch. I’d like to discuss the spell with you.”

“Yes ma’am,” he answered.

“And Miss Summer Dawn,” she continued. “I’ve been told that he’s taught you the spell?”

She looked honestly surprised. “Who told you that?” she blurted, then blushed a bit at her direct stare. “I’ve been studying it, yes,” she replied.

“Then I would see you in my office as well. Given the danger of the spell, I’d like to be sure that you’ve been taught correctly.”

“Yes ma’am,” she replied, which caused quite a bit of whispering in the lower tiers.

“Have you used it successfully yet?” Frostmane asked.

Summer Dawn glanced at Starjumper, and he just flicked his muzzle towards the front of the classroom in consent. She gave him a grin, then fixed a very direct stare on the front of the classroom. She then took a deep breath, her horn blazed with pink magic, and she disappeared from her seat in a circular burst of pink magic. She reappeared standing in front of Frostmane in the well between the teacher’s dais and the tiers. And Starjumper was a bit impressed, she’d changed her position, going from sitting to standing.

There were shocked gasps from the rest of the class, but not from the top tier.

“No visible after-effects of transitional resistance, and you successfully changed your position. Well done, Summer Dawn,” she said with a satisfied nod.

“I’m still working on teleporting to a place I can’t see, but I’m getting the hang of it,” she said modestly, trying hard not to smile.

“You may return to your seat. Walk,” she added, which made her grin a bit as she turned and almost strutted towards the steps to the top tier. But she did take the effort to look Nova right in the eyes as she passed by him, and that single glance was as devastating as if she’d turned her rump to him and planted both her rear hooves in his face. There was no doubt to any student in that room that Nova was no longer the brightest star. Summer Dawn had teleported, and that put her so far above him that he would never, ever stand equal to her.

And for a stuck up, arrogant little jerk like Nova, that was the worst thing she could have possibly done to him. For him, status was everything, and she had taken his status from him.

The lunch bell rang just as she got back to her desk, and they started packing up. “So, where do you guys wanna eat today?” Summer Dawn asked.

“I have lunch at home,” Starjumper said.

“No, you are not eating lunch at home,” she told him crisply. “Let’s go to the Three Griffons.”

“That’s halfway across town,” Berry Cream protested. “And you have to see Frostmane after you eat.”

“Well, let’s go to the Corner Café then,” she offered. “It’s close enough, and I haven’t eaten there for a while.”

“You four have fun,” Starjumper told them, and Strider smiled a bit at being included in the group.

“Remember what I told you about hiding in your apartment, Star?” she said pointedly. “Eat with us. Just this once. Show Canterlot you’re not hiding.”

“Well…alright,” he grunted, staring at Nova as he got out of his seat and glared up at the top tier. He then got with his two friends and parked himself conspicuously by the door, no doubt to try to create a scene when Starjumper came down. “And since we’re not hiding anymore,” he said. His horn absolutely blazed with intense golden light, and then all five of them vanished in a oval burst of golden magic, encompassing all of them.

Take that, Nova.

The five of them appeared on the roof opposite the Corner Café, a safe place for them to land given the street may have ponies on it, and three of his four passengers were quite surprised. It was a massive effort to teleport five ponies, so he felt the effort of it once they arrived at the destination he’d selected. “Where are we? Did we teleport? We did! That was so awesome!” Berry Cream squealed, looking around in excitement.

“That wasn’t what I expected,” Strider said in his even manner. “I felt something, a strange heat. And it wasn’t instant.”

“It’s not instant,” Starjumper affirmed as he got enough of a look at the street. He teleported himself and Summer Dawn’s three friends down to the street, them appearing just outside the fence, and a second later, Summer Dawn appeared in a burst of pink magic right beside him. “But the shorter the distance, the faster it is,” he added after blowing out his breath, his head sagging a bit.

“Interesting,” Strider said, looking over at him. “You look a little tired. Is it hard?”

“Teleporting four, oh yes, but it was the easiest way to get us down,” he replied honestly. “That’s why I left Summer out of it. She can get down on her own.”

“Summer taught us the self-levitation trick, we coulda gotten down on our own,” Crystal Bell told him. “But that was way cooler.”

“You’ve been busy when you’re home,” he said, looking at Summer Dawn.

She laughed. “Hey, they’re my friends. Of course I’m gonna teach ‘em the tricks you teach me,” she winked. “I’m teaching them shields right now.”

“And wow are they hard,” Berry Cream grunted as they walked through the gate and into the restaurant. “But it’s really cool. It’s like I’m learning, like, real magic, not just the spells they teach us in school.”

They sat at a table inside, and the waitress didn’t so much as glance at Starjumper. And that made him relax a little. And he could admit, it felt, well…it felt nice to sit not just with Summer Dawn, but with three of her friends, like he was just another pony. He also found that he could probably come to like Strider. The slender stallion was sober, serious, and quite intelligent, and those were personality traits they happened to share. He engaged Starjumper in a debate about advanced transfiguration magic while the mares chatted about an upcoming party, and he felt…he felt alright. They were going out of their way to make him feel like he wasn’t alone, and he could honestly appreciate their kindness.

It also made him far more honest than he expected to be, when Berry Cream asked him a question that didn’t surprise him, but surprised him that Summer Dawn had never asked. “Wow, how did you learn so much about magic, Starjumper? I mean, you’re our age, but you know like ten times more than we do!”

“Because it’s all I’ve ever had,” he replied honestly before he realized what he said. “I guess since you know, well, know, I can be honest about that. When I was a foal, I couldn’t go outside very much. I couldn’t play with other foals my age much, because of my secret. It would just take one stray comment, one moment of inattention, and it would be over. Besides, when I first started school, I had trouble keeping the secret. I didn’t think it was all that big a deal back then. It’s just my luck that the other foals thought I was just telling stories, and didn’t believe me. Anyway, since I was a foal, all I’ve ever really been able to do is read and study. It filled my time, it kept me busy, and when I started helping Dad out in the shop, I found out that I could do something with what I was learning, that it had practical value. I could help my mom and dad in the shop using my magic, and it made me feel helpful, useful. So, that made me want to study even more, because I finally felt like I could do something more than sit in the house and watch other ponies live a life I couldn’t have. And later on, when I learned about the Lykan legend, the treaty, and where I stood with the thestrals of the Nightlands, I knew magic would be my only defense if they came for me. So, I studied very hard to make sure I’d be ready. Studying was my life, for so much of my life…I really don’t know what else there is to do. It’s all I know.”

The four of them gave him a very long look, then Summer Dawn reached over and put a hoof on his shoulder. “Well, it’s not all there is anymore,” she declared. “You don’t have to hide your secret now, so you don’t have to hide at all. There’s a lot to see, Star, a lot to do. There’s a whole world out there, and I’d be happy to show it to you.”

“As long as it doesn’t involve Canterlot parties,” he said with a bit of a wry smile. He suddenly felt very vulnerable, very exposed telling them that, telling them something so personal.

“Now what’s wrong with Canterlot parties?” Berry Cream protested.

“So much standing around talking, it would drive me crazy,” he replied. “Besides, I don’t like crowds and I don’t like nonsense, and a Canterlot party is nothing but all of both.”

“Starjumper thinks that us Canterlot ponies are a bunch of silly foals who waste all our time talking about everything but doing nothing,” Summer Dawn grinned at her friends.

“He’s not entirely wrong,” Strider said, then wheezed a bit when Crystal Bell whacked him. “What? Isn’t that what we do at parties, Crystal? Stand around talking about everything but not doing anything?”

“I think you and me are going to get along, Strider,” Starjumper said seriously, which made the three mares laugh.

After eating, he and Summer Dawn reported to Frostmane’s office, and she didn’t waste any time. She asked both of them some very detailed questions about teleportation magic, and with each answer, she got both more intrigued and more relaxed. She was satisfied that they had taken learning the spell very seriously, and they understood the dangers the spell posed. But the answers Starjumper gave her got her most curious, and she spent most of the rest of the lunch period debating the finer points of the magic, finding that she was the one learning.

“You are truly a master of the spell, Mister Starjumper,” she declared as they got up to return to class. “I hadn’t considered even half of that possible.”

“It is my special talent, Professor. I’ve studied the spell for years, since I was a foal.”

“Well, I think that the Headmistress and myself may be having a few very long talks with you about your knowledge of the spell,” she said. “You have expanded the known mechanics of the spell, and we should update our books to include what you’ve learned.”

“I guess I could make some time for it,” he said as they walked down the hallway.

“And do not worry about me, Miss Summer Dawn. You are clearly learning the spell from the most qualified pony in Canterlot to teach it,” she added. “You have my full support to continue your lessons. You have proven to me beyond any doubt that you are learning the spell properly and safely. Just remember that we will test you on all of its applications on your final exam. You must display mastery of the spell’s basic mechanics to get the extra credit. That will include teleporting to where you cannot see, and teleporting an object that is not yourself to a chosen destination.”

“I’ll be ready, Professor,” she declared confidently. “Starjumper thinks I’ll be competent in teleporting to a place I can’t see in a couple of weeks, then I start working on external teleportation.”

“Needless to say, I think giving both of you the written exam will be completely unnecessary,” she added dryly. “If you demonstrate competence with teleportation, Miss Summer Dawn, you’ll pass on those bonus points alone.”

“You have no idea how happy I am to hear that, Professor,” Summer Dawn said elatedly.

They were released to self-study in the library after lunch, and that was a welcome return to routine…but it was also very, very awkward. Just about every pony in the library was doing their best to stare at him without making it apparent they were staring at him as he sat at his favorite table with Summer Dawn—friendship was fine and good, but she considered library time with him tutor time, and nopony muscled in on her tutor time—and went over the mechanics of the spell that read a book aloud. That was the most important spell he could teach her, since it would open up the world of books to her and allow her to study on her own. Like everything he’d taught her so far, she picked up on the idea of it quickly, and it made him hopeful that she’d be able to cast it within a couple of weeks. But it was hard to concentrate on teaching her with all the ponies staring, and he noticed that there was also a lot of whispering around them, which they couldn’t hear because of the dome of silence he customarily placed over the table when they worked.

And another thing he noticed was Nova, almost gleefully moving from table to table to whisper with the occupants.

The donut shop and diner hadn’t been bad. Class hadn’t been that bad either, but this was everything he feared about ponies knowing his secret. The stares, the whispers, they would snowball over the coming days as rumors got wilder and wilder, as ponies tried to shock each other with what they’d “last heard” about him. And that went double for a place like Canterlot, with so many ponies that seemingly lived to gossip.

This…was not a good sign.

After class was done, they cleaned up their table, and Starjumper decided to avoid just about everypony by teleporting himself and Summer Dawn to the balcony. She looked around and grinned at him as he unlocked the door with his magic and opened it, then they walked in. “It’s gonna take a while to get used to that,” she told him. “I mean, knowing you can do it is one thing, seeing you do so much now that you don’t have to hide it is another."

“Welcome to how my family felt for years,” he replied casually. “Let’s get started before your parents show up.”

“Am I doing across the room or upstairs?”

“Upstairs, so set out the rope.”

“Got it. Get ready to cast the mane-protecting spell for me,” she smiled at him, trotting over to a bookshelf and retrieving the rope she used to form the boundary of her landing spot. “Do I put it behind the bed or what?” They’d moved his bed back upstairs two days ago.

“Doesn’t matter, you’re not going to set the sheets on fire if you miss and land on the bed,” he replied.

She laughed a bit guiltily, betraying the fact that she was thinking just that.

Starjumper had promised to teach her parents teleportation, and that manifested itself in the fact that Summer Dawn no longer had him completely to herself in the afternoon. They were going to tutor with him one or two hours a day after school until they learned the spell, which may take a while in Fleur de Lis’ case, fitting it in around their lunchtime and early afternoon engagements and whatever social events were happening in the evening. And in a way, the lessons themselves were something of a very visible symbol that the social paragons of Canterlot fully accepted a Lykan in the city, a Lykan among them. They trusted him enough to not only let their daughter tutor under him, but tutor under him themselves, and that did send a very strong statement through the city. So, the lessons had more than one objective, and Starjumper didn’t mind either of them. He did honestly like Summer Dawn’s parents, they were not what he expected in the best way, and he appreciated how much they were helping him now, when he did truly need their help. Besides, he enjoyed teaching, and he didn’t mind two new students…that weren’t quite so sassy as his first.

They arrived right on time, and he put them to work. He worked with Fancy Pants first, undoing all the bad training he received about teleportation one lesson at a time, then setting him to practicing the basic application of the spell as a shell cast, which was a practice tool that the school taught that worked similarly to staging. Shell casting was casting the spell with virtually no magical power, which caused it to fizzle harmlessly yet also allowed the unicorn to practice the actual casting of the spell. Starjumper didn’t like that technique because intentionally fizzling a spell ingrained bad habits, and in Summer Dawn’s case, with her immense power, intentionally casting a spell so it fizzled could be dangerous given her tendency to radically overcharge spells. Shell casting was the last technique Summer Dawn ever needed to learn. But for other ponies, it worked and worked well, and that was true in Fleur de Lis’ case. She did better shell casting than staging, she couldn’t get the hang of staging, so he was quite happy to let her use what worked for her.

That was what teaching was about.

She had the strength to cast the spell, but like Summer Dawn, she didn’t have the skill to use it safely yet, and that was what Starjumper was working to fix. Like her daughter, he was teaching her shield spells as an introduction to teleportation, since they shared many similar traits, a spell he was honestly surprised that she didn’t already know. A mare with her magical potential could easily cast shield spells, but she’d never learned them because of her demanding modeling career. And now that she was retired, she was correcting the one regret she had in her choice of professions, which was not pursuing her magical education.

After about two hours, Summer Dawn’s parents left, and that let him focus on his primary student. He was quite impressed with how much progress she made over the session, and also on her determination to keep trying every time she came up short or missed her landing point or messed up the three aspects and ended up burning herself or reappearing awkwardly. She had the right mentality for high order magic, and that was a willingness to pick herself up and try again when she made a mistake.

But things were different now, and nothing demonstrated that more than when the clock rang its three bells. She was taking a break when it happened, sitting on her cushion listening to him explain the basics behind external teleportation, which was teleporting an object not herself from one place to another. She just glanced at the clock, then picked a cushion up off the couch with her magic, floated it over, and knocked the clock over and put the cushion on top of it. Starjumper just had to chuckle at that.

“That won’t make it stop. It runs on magic,” he warned.

“That’s not the point. I don’t even know why you have it running,” she said, looking up at him. “You don’t need that clock anymore, Star. It doesn’t run your life anymore.”

“I do still need the clock, even if the city knows,” he told her evenly. “I don’t want them seeing it, Summer, particularly at sunset when my wings grow in. You’ve seen it, it is a bloody affair. I don’t think I want young foals to see that, it might frighten them. It would fuel even more rumors.”

“Yeah, it’s kinda icky,” she admitted. “So I’ll give you that. But it won’t rule me anymore,” she declared. “I’ve seen you change, and you don’t see me running for the door. And I already told my parents I’ll be later than usual tonight,” she declared.

“Oh, listen to this,” he said, giving her a steady look. “I don’t seem to recall anypony promoting you to queen.”

“Mom and Dad took two hours of my time, and I’m getting it back,” she declared shamelessly. “Besides, wouldn’t you rather have somepony to talk to rather than be in here alone? You can’t fly yet, it must be terribly boring.” She got up from her cushion, then went over to the cabinet and started laying out the materials he’d need when he changed, the slats and bandages for the splint and a vial of healing tonic. He still needed a split for his wing, though the break was mostly healed. Without the splint, it made his wing ache, so the splint was more or less just for pain relief. Even after he didn’t need the splint anymore, he wouldn’t be flying until the doctor assured him that his bone was fully mended. That bone took all the stress his wings endured when he flew, and if it wasn’t completely healed, he might break it again just from flapping his wings. “And you’ll need help getting your wing tended when you change,” she added. “The doctor taught me how to do it, so I’ll be here to make sure it gets done.”

“You want to just move your clothes into my closet while you’re at it?” he asked caustically.

She looked over her shoulder at him and laughed. “Be lucky Mom and Dad didn’t carry through their original idea and make you stay at the Waterfalls until you’re healed.”

“Seriously?”

“Mmm-hmm,” she hummed. “They didn’t want you to be here all alone. They even talked to your parents about it, but your mom talked them out of it.”

“I woulda never done it,” he declared.

“And your mom knew that,” she agreed. “They dropped it when I assured them I’d be here to make sure you were okay. And I’m going to do just that,” she declared. “So, younger stallion, you’re going to do what I tell you to do, because you’re my patient, and that means way more than me being your student. That means you don’t get to boss me around when it comes to your well being,” she winked. “After I get your wing tended and I make sure you have a good hot dinner, I can practice a little more with you here before I go home. Speaking of dinner, it should be here in just a little bit.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, Mom and Dad told Withers to keep sending dinner over here until you’re fully healed, because of how the healing tonic makes you eat like crazy,” she replied absently as she set out another vial of healing tonic. “You’re too busy to cook with all the tutoring you’re doing for me and my folks, and you need a whole lot of nutritious food to heal faster. Think of it as a thank-you from my parents for your tutoring.”

“I can make my own dinner!” he protested indignantly.

“I know you can, but this isn’t about what you can or can’t do. This is about making sure you heal properly,” she replied patiently. “Mom and Dad promised your parents that they’d make sure you were okay, and they won’t go back on a promise. They’re worried about you, Star. So of course they’re going to look out for you.”

He gave her a nearly incredulous look, rearing up from his sitting position and putting his forehooves on his hips, both annoyed at and a little grateful to her parents. He didn’t like them butting into his life like this, and Summer Dawn was taking almost sadistic glee in just taking over his evening, but he could understand their sentiment and be appreciative that they thought enough of him to watch over him after his family went home.

This was entirely new territory for him, he realized…and he didn’t know how to process it. He would never have believed just a moon ago that Summer Dawn’s parents would accept him so completely, accept who he was, accept what he was, and feel entirely comfortable intruding themselves into his very private, very guarded life. He did like them, but he just didn’t know how to take all this attention, all this interest in him.

And part of it was a feeling of, of helplessness. Like his life had spun out of his control, and now he was hurtling towards the ground in a wild spin, the sky and ground sucked into a whirlpool of chaos. He was so used to everything being on his terms, approaching others from a position of control, that he didn’t know what to do, what to think, when that control was wrested away from him. From Summer Dawn’s cheeky defiance to her parents’ well-intentioned meddling, he found himself dealing with ponies that weren’t going to adhere to his rules. They were coming into his life on their terms, not his terms, and he didn’t quite know what to do about it.

There was one thing he could do, and that was remind Summer Dawn just who was the boss in his own apartment. “You forgot one thing.”

“And what is that?”

“You never get to boss me around,” he retorted, his horn flaring with brilliant golden light. She then vanished in a circular burst of golden magic, relocated out onto the balcony. He leaned back down and put his forehooves on the floor, then stood up and wisely teleported himself up onto the second floor, then conjured a planar shield that ran all the way across the lip of it just as the balcony door opened. “Starjumper Astra!” she barked commandingly as she stormed back into the apartment, then saw the shield and him smiling down at her from the edge of the second floor. “You get back down here!” she demanded, pointing at the floor with a hoof.

“What did I just tell you?” he asked lightly.

“And this is what I have to say about that!” she replied, her horn blazing with intense pink magic. She vanished in a circular burst of her magic, and he heard her reappear on the other side of the bedroom, inside the rope circle she’d set out as her landing spot.

Exactly what he knew she’d do.

He sprung his trap, creating a shimmering golden shield around the edge of that rope that ascended and enclosed as it rose, pulling her up into the air and trapping her inside it when it formed a sphere after it lost contact with the floor. It vibrated in a way she most likely had never seen before, magical currents constantly pulsing across its surface. This was a very advanced use of a shield, one he more or less designed himself to deal with…himself. “There, now you just stay in there for a little while and think about all the things you’ve done while I get things ready for sunset,” he said in a patronizing voice, giving her a maliciously amused smile.

She gave him a smug look, her horn blazing, then she vanished in a circular burst of pink magic…and then reappeared in the exact same place, a little bit of smoke hissing out of her mane. She gave him a shocked, surprised look, then looked at the shield enclosing her in growing understanding.

It was a shield that blocked teleportation.

“Star! You, you rat!” she screamed, banging on the shield with a forehoof. “You just wait til I get out of here!”

“You’ll be a good little girl, because I can put you right back in there if I want to,” he replied in a mellow, almost musical voice. “Remember that the next time you want to be sassy, silly mare. I haven’t taught you everything.”

“And you forget that I just have to wait until sunset!” she retorted. “I know you wouldn’t leave me in here all night!”

“Try me.”

“You wouldn’t dare!”

“Think of this as your next task, Summer,” he said cheekily, showing far more emotion than usual as he looked up and back at her. “You either find a way out, or you’ll have a whole lot to explain to your parents in the morning.”

She gave him a hot look, then burst into sudden laughter. “This is not how you ask a mare out on a date, Star!” she chided him.

“Who needs to ask a mare out? You forget what I can do, sassy mare. It’s more of an undeclineable request.”

She gave him a look, then laughed even harder. “That’s called foalnapping!”

“Details, details,” he said flippantly as he lowered the planar shield and walked down the wall to the first floor. That made her lose it, collapsing onto the bottom of the bubble, laughing uncontrollably.

It was part reminder that she wasn’t his boss and part real test, because he left her up there to figure out how to break the shield. And she didn’t disappoint. When the clock rang seven bells, she trotted victoriously up to the top of the stairs and looked down at him as he moved out into the open area of the first floor and prepared for moonrise. “Ha!” she declared.

“Good work,” he said in a mellow voice as he turned to look up at her. “And what did you learn?”

“Spherical shields are weaker on the inside of their arc than the outside.”

“Excellent,” he commended. “Keep that in mind if you ever try to use a shield to trap another unicorn. If they’re smart, they can break the shield by exploiting that weakness. And what else did you learn?”

“That I could overpower the shield.”

“Correct again. As strong as you are, Summer, the only pony that should ever be able to trap you in a shield is an alicorn. You can just outright blow up the shield, especially when you’re on the inside and can attack it at its weakest point.”

“So, what was that about an undeclineable request?” she asked with a grin.

“I have more tricks you haven’t seen yet, mare,” he threatened, which made her laugh. She then impressed him by teleporting from the top of the stairs to right beside him, showing that she was really getting comfortable with teleporting to a place she could see. And with maybe another week or two of work, she’d be comfortable teleporting to a place she couldn’t see. “Back up a little bit,” he told her. “It’s almost time.”

“I’m ready,” she declared, taking a couple of steps back and then shifting over to stand in front of him. “If I see your wing sag or see you wince, I’m gonna support it with magic til we get the splint on.”

He nodded without replying as he looked over at the clock, and she picked up a rag from the table with her magic to be ready to wipe off the blood that accompanied the transformation. The evening transformation was the bloodier of the two, because of the size of his wings where they grew out of his back.

The moon rose, and the change began. And oddly enough, he didn’t feel awkward or uncomfortable in any way with Summer Dawn standing there watching it, watching the most private part of himself being exposed to the world. He gritted his teeth as his horn disintegrated and his wings grew out, then he spread them so the membranes could grow in without issue, feeling the biting ache in his half-healed bone as the weight of the wing was put on it. When it was over, he became aware that Summer Dawn had his broken wing wrapped in her magic, supporting it and keeping it immobile as she triplecast to pick up the splint materials…and that did ease the pain he was feeling. “Alright, first time doing this without the doctor supervising,” she said with a calming breath.

“You’ll do fine,” he assured her as he sat down and lowered his head to give her an unobstructed view.

And she did. She splinted his wing with practiced ease, then cleaned the blood off his sides and forehead with the rag, tossing it into the bucket he kept for them that was filled with water so the blood didn’t dry and permanently stain the cloth. Doing that rather grisly laundry was part of his daily routine. “There, all done,” she declared, stepping up to him.

There was a knock at the door, and Summer Dawn opened it with her magic. Withers, her family’s cook and butler, wheeled in a cart holding large metal domes atop it, under which was dinner. “Dinner has arrived, little miss,” he declared, barely giving Starjumper a look.

“Awesome, Withers! Thank you so much!”

“Would you like me to set the table?”

“Nah, we can manage. Tell Mom and Dad I’ll be home in a few hours. Star’s gonna let me practice after we eat.”

“They did remind me to tell you to be home by ten. Curfew is still curfew, little miss.”

“I’ll be home on time, and I’ll bring home the cart,” she promised. “Thank you again, Withers.”

He gave a nod, then turned and left the apartment.

“Let’s eat, then maybe I can practice ‘porting up to the circle a little bit before I go home?”

“You’ve already made that decision, why are you asking me?” he asked tartly. She just laughed and grinned at him. “I think you’ll be safe enough,” he added, walking over to the cart and putting a hoof on it, then he pushed it towards the table. “Just don’t get exotic.”

“I know better than to get exotic,” she replied, which made him nod in prideful agreement.

After a quite delicious dinner, he let her practice until she was tired as he read, and he was impressed by her progress. She was landing in the circle more than she was missing now, which meant that she was starting to really get the hang of building a detailed image of her landing point in her mind and then moving herself to that spot. That was the key of blind teleportation, and it was why he’d been so insistent that she learn the art of paying attention. Her increasing success meant that she was starting to understand that, starting to put texture into her imagined landing point, starting to understand that teleportation was as much an art as it was a spell.

They cleaned up the dishes and loaded them into the cabinet of the cart, then he walked with her out onto the balcony as she pulled the cart out with her with magic. It felt good to be outside, even if it was surprisingly cold tonight, and he felt a nearly overpowering desire to fly…which he couldn’t do for anther two weeks. He looked up into the sky almost yearningly, something that Summer Dawn didn’t miss. “You really miss it, don’t you?” she asked.

“At night, flying was about all I had, much like reading was all I had in the daytime,” he replied softly. “I always do my best thinking when I fly.”

“What’s it like? To fly?”

“Freedom,” he replied immediately. “It’s freedom.”

“Maybe you could take me flying when your wing heals? I’ve always been curious.”

“I think we could do that. You’ll need a harness, though, something I can grip with my hooves that’s not your coat and skin. I don’t think you’d like that.”

“Can you make one?”

He nodded. “It’s very simple. I can transfigure one out of a sturdy cloth, like canvas.”

“Great! Just promise you won’t drop me.”

“You take all the fun out of life, do you know that?”

She gave a bright laugh, then she and the cart were surrounded in an aura of pink magic. “I’ll see you tomorrow. You have a nice easy night, Star,” she smiled as she rose up into the air.

He watched her fly off, then reared up and put his hooves on the rail and looked out over the school campus. So, his first day of school since his secret was exposed was over…and it wasn’t as bad as he feared. He certainly felt appreciative that Summer Dawn’s friends had gone out of their way to make him feel welcome, and he felt like he could get to know Strider. Maybe…maybe he could make a second friend in Canterlot. He’d always felt that some ponies could accept him if they knew his secret, and Summer Dawn, her parents, and Summer Dawn’s friends proved that.

But Nova proved that he was wise to keep it a secret, because there would always be ponies that would hate him or fear him because of what he was. Nova was most likely acting on his father’s orders, but he was enjoying it way too much as he spread rumors about Starjumper through school to be free of blame. And Nova and his father were in real positions to be a threat to him, enough that if it wasn’t for Summer Dawn’s parents, he wouldn’t be staying here. If not for them pushing back against those rumors, he’d be in way too much danger to try to live a normal life here.

Normal life. That was almost a joke. But yet…for the first time in his life, he felt almost like he could be normal. He had a friend here, friends, in Summer Dawn and her parents. He had the support of the Royal Palace, and some of the ponies that interacted with him seemed to accept him, like Donut Joe and Summer Dawn’s friends in school.

Could he live here? Could he live among ponies that knew his secret and not feel like they were afraid of him?

He doubted it. But today had shown him that he did need to give Canterlot a chance. He’d stay for a while and see how things turned out. If they turned out good, then that was a good thing. He had some ideas about how he could make his way here, and the house he intended to build on the cliffside was only one of them. But if they turned out bad, well, he did have wings. All he had to do was relocate.

He’d just need to keep alert, and obey the first rule of being a Lykan when one’s secret was exposed, a rule some of his ancient predecessors had not heeded…to their ultimate doom.

Know when to run.

The Sun's Plea

He knew that it had taken a long time for him to wake up, even though he remembered nothing.

It was the little things that told him that something was going on, and his mind was keenly aware of those small things that other ponies often missed. His mind was trained to spot them, and the most glaring of them was that his body was unresponsive. This wasn’t the stiffness of sleeping too long, this was that moment one sometimes felt when on the edge of sleep when the body was disconnected from the mind, trying to move but unable, which often cleared up when the pony’s awareness kicked in. When he became aware again, aware of being in a warm bed and in a room that was warm but silent, he couldn’t make his eyes open. It was like…his eyelids rebelled against him, like his ability to command his entire body had been stripped from him. That had created a surge of panic in him that could go no further than his own mind, because his body refused to obey. He could feel the warmth and the sheets, and he could hear faint voices, as if he were in a very large room and they were on the far side of the door on the far side of that large room, but he couldn’t move. Anypony that might come in would have no idea he was awake. He as helpless, he was completely vulnerable, and it caused a terror in him that nearly caused him to pass out from its intensity.

For an amount of time he couldn’t fathom, he had struggled within his own mind, until he finally regained control of himself and calmed down. He was still breathing, so he wasn’t paralyzed, and he wasn’t dead. His heart was beating, he was breathing, so his body was still working. And if he couldn’t move, then that meant that something was making it happen. He could feel his body, so it couldn’t be a physical injury causing this paralysis. If that were so, he’d have no sensation in the paralyzed parts of him…which was everything. If he couldn’t even open his eyes, then his entire body was affected, and thus he would have no sensation anywhere.

So, if the cause wasn’t physical, then it had to be magical.

He rationalized that if he couldn’t smell the sheets, smell what was in the room, then it had to be daytime. And if it was daytime, that meant that he had another set of senses to use, his magical sense. He started searching for magic within himself, but was not himself, and it took him only moments to find it.

A spell.

Somepony had cast a spell on him to completely paralyze him. It was a charged spell, its matrix was fairly tightly woven and very strong, telling him that the caster was a master of the magical art. Starjumper searched through the spell matrix, a spell he had never seen before, but he could understand its basic design, and that meant that he knew how to go about attacking the spell to break it. The spell wasn’t affecting his magic, only his body, so he felt it when he drew up the magic from within his core and used it like a spear, driving it into the weaving of the spell placed upon him and ripping a hole in it. He twisted that spear after it tore through the spell, that that was the fatal blow that unraveled it completely.

And he almost immediately regretted doing it.

His body went completely haywire. His legs kicked erratically, his mouth clamped shut with so much force that he thought his teeth were going to crack. He jerked and twisted, rolling out of the bed and falling to the floor, landing on the side of his head and briefly knocking him senseless. That blow quelled his body, leaving him laying on the floor twitching spasmodically, and then the convulsions and seizures slowly eased. After a moment, he was again still, panting for breath and in pain, his muscles screaming from the sudden eruption of activity that had nearly ripped them from their anchors on his bones. He simultaneously felt like he’d just run back to Baltimare and was smashed to the ground by an angry dragon. He laid there for several moments, and when the pain eased in his legs, he tried moving.

It was a bit shaky, but he seemed to have command of himself again. He rolled up onto his hooves and then unsteadily pushed up onto them, rising to a wobbly stand, his tail slashing behind him as he took stock of his surroundings. The opulence of the room made it clear that this was the Royal Palace. It was a lushly appointed bedroom with a four poster bed with silk sheets, velvet curtains on the bed, and a thick, soft comforter that was now on the floor. The furniture in the room matched the basic style of the Palace’s architecture and color scheme, and the drape-flanked windows in the room showed a commanding view of the western valley. The floor was covered in a very thick and very expensive Saddle Arabian carpet.

So, he woke up in the Royal Palace…and he had absolutely no idea how he got here.

The last thing he remembered was telling Rocky to watch the new home, and then Summer Dawn came over to him and they teleported…and then he woke up here under a spell that was keeping his paralyzed. Those two facts told him that something very, very serious must have happened, for him to both not remember a thing and also for them to use magic to keep him subdued. But, since he didn’t wake up in a dungeon cell, that told him that whatever happened hadn’t been his fault. Something must have happened for him to have a seizure the instant the paralysis spell was broken, unless he had the seizure because he dispelled the paralysis spell by force. That was a possibility, given he had no experience with that spell. He honestly had never even heard of it before, so he had no idea how it worked or what kind of effect it might have if it was dispelled.

So…what had happened? Why was he here, waking up in the Royal Palace and under the effect of a spell that completely prevented him from moving? He heard another faint, muffled voice, coming from the far side of the door across the very large room, and he took a very shaky step in that direction, still feeling the effects of…well, whatever it was. His body didn’t want to cooperate, so he staggered several times with each step, until he got sick of it and teleported across the room, reappearing at the door. He surrounded the door latch with his magic, then turned it and staggered back a little as he pulled the door open, trying to just take a single step back and nearly having his back legs collapse under him. Two unicorn guards immediately poked their heads in, and when they saw him trying to get back to a standing position, he found himself being lifted up off the floor by one of the guard’s magic. “You need to return to bed, you’re still recovering,” he ordered, entering the room and carrying him along as the other guard turned and galloped down the hallway beyond. “My comrade is summoning the Princess.”

“What happened?” he asked in a weak voice. “I don’t remember anything.”

“I’m afraid I can’t answer that, because I don’t know entirely what happened myself,” he answered. “But I will warn you not to try to teleport back to the apartment.”

“Why not?”

“Because it’s not there anymore,” he answered as he set Starjumper back on the huge bed on his belly and hooves facing back towards the door, then picked up the comforter from the floor and spread it over his back. “You’d teleport into the rubble, and I don’t think you’d find that very enjoyable.”

“Rubble? What happened to my apartment!” he gasped. “Did I move to my new house before it happened, or did I lose everything?”

“I don’t know,” he replied with empathy. “I wasn’t told what you’d removed from the apartment before it happened.”

“Well, what did happen?”

“It was set on fire,” he replied. “Deliberately.”

“Somepony burned down my house?” he asked in both shock and anger.

“Yes. We don’t know who it was, but we will find out,” he replied with a dark look.

There was the chiming sound of teleportation, and Summer Dawn appeared in the room in a circular burst of pink magic, well away from the bed. “Starjumper!” she cried, charging towards him, her eyes shining with tears. He wheezed a bit when she literally jumped onto the bed with him, hugging him around his comforter. “I’m so happy to see you awake! I was so worried!”

The guard withdrew without another word as he tried to untangle himself from his student. “Summer, what happened? Why am I here?”

“Princess Luna said you wouldn’t remember,” she said, mainly to herself. “So much happened, I don’t know where to start. What I should say and what I should let the Princess explain to you.”

“I think it would be best,” Princess Celestia said as she entered the room, “that you should let me do that, young one.”

Starjumper looked at her, and saw almost immediately that something very important had happened, because Princess Celestia’s mane and tail were uplifted by her magic, as if they were blowing in a gentle breeze. That was a visible effect of the magic it took to raise the sun, and it had affected Princess Twilight since he’d been here. Princess Celestia was once again the pony responsible for raising the sun, and that meant that she had taken back her rightful place from Princess Twilight.

Her sabbatical, it seemed, was over.

“Your Highness,” he said, bowing his head respectfully. “I guess my first question is, why was I under a paralysis spell?”

“For your own safety,” she answered, walking up to the bed. “You were suffering from seizures while you were sleeping. Paralyzing your body was our only real recourse.”

“Then something pretty bad must have happened, especially since I don’t remember anything,” he grunted as Summer Dawn settled down, but didn’t get off the bed. She laid on her belly beside him, tucking in her hooves. “The last thing I remember is me and Summer teleporting out of my new home. Then…nothing. Just nothing.”

“The simple answer to that, my young Lykan, is that it was the only thing Luna could do to save your sanity,” she answered seriously, reaching the edge of the bed and looking down at him. “You were in no way prepared for what happened, and it required the extreme measure of completely erasing your memory. She had to, in effect, turn back the clock and fix it so, from your point of view, the events that led to your injury never happened.”

“Whoa,” he said in a low voice, then he took a deep, bracing breath. “So, what did happen?”

“That will take time to explain,” she said, looking to the side. One of the very expensive divans floated over, carried by her magic, and she set it behind her. She climbed up onto it and settled herself, looking quite regal while also looking very comfortable, something he noticed from her visit to the apartment. “The best place to begin, Starjumper, is not with what happened to you, but with why what happened came to pass,” she said in her calm voice. “I told you that I was going to the Nightlands to investigate things, and what we learned there has changed everything.” Her horn glowed with her magic, and a very, very old book appeared in the air between them, as she showed off her amazing skill with magic by teleporting it and hovering it at the same time. “We discovered ancient thestral tomes holding the history of their race, which had been hidden from everypony, even the Night Queen.

“We learned the truth about the Lykans, Starjumper. You are not cursed. The legends about you are all made up, they were deliberately invented and spread to hide the truth, by the rulers of the Nightlands themselves. They feared Lykans so much that they murdered all of your kindred ancestor Lykans and undertook a decades-long political campaign to demonize you not just in the Nightlands, but in every realm and kingdom in the entire world, so that a Lykan would be under constant suspicion and even attack from every pony they encountered, and those that may survive would find no refuge from thestral assassins.”

“Wow,” he breathed. “Why in Luna’s moon would they be so afraid of me? Can I really shatter the Night Stone?”

“No,” she said, shaking her head to further emphasize her statement. “The truth is almost the exact opposite of that, my young one. In the ancient times, before the Clan Wars, Lykans were the guardians of the Night Stone. They held a unique and powerful position in thestral society as the only ponies that could hear the Night Stone’s song, could communicate with it, and could also directly channel its magic. The Lykans were above even the Night King in their power, for it was they who put the Night King on the throne. The Night Stone would choose the Night King, and the Lykans would inform the Nightlands of its decision. So, my young one, you aren’t carrying a curse that will destroy the Night Stone. You are its guardian and its voice in the world. Your thestral heritage connects you to the Night Stone, and your unicorn heritage gives you the ability to safely channel its power. In truth, Starjumper, in the ancient times, you would have been one of the most revered members of thestral society.”

He gave her a stunned, almost suspicious look.

She opened the book with her magic, and turned it to show it to him. It was written in Old Thestralla, a language he had seen but couldn’t read, but it showed a picture of a large floating oval stone with three ponies in front of it…a thestral and a unicorn standing to each side of a pony with both a horn and leathery wings. Alicorn? A thestral alicorn?

“In those ancient times, my young one, the Lykans protected the Night Stone and spoke its will to the thestrals, since they could hear its song. They were also the only ones who could touch the Night Stone, since they had unicorn blood and could safely channel its magic. They were the Speakers of the Stone, and their most sacred duty was to speak the will of the Night Stone when it chose a new Night King, when the old one passed on or stepped down from the throne. And it was this duty that brought ruin to the Nightlands,” she said, turning the page. “Iron Wing the Betrayer was chosen by the Night Stone many years before, but he had become corrupted by the power of his throne,” she said, turning the page again, showing thestrals standing around another laying on the ground. “He learned that the Night Stone was about to select a new Night King, which would forcibly abdicate him, and so he engaged in a dark plot. He had thestrals loyal to him assassinate the Lykans, killing every one of them, to prevent the Night Stone from issuing that order. Without Lykans to speak for the Night Stone, there was nopony left that could relay its wishes. Iron Wing passed laws to prevent Lykans from being born, including forbidding any thestral from leaving the Nightlands while also banishing the large population of unicorns that lived side by side with the thestrals in the Nightlands so that no thestral could marry a unicorn to produce a Lykan.” She turned another page, showing a long line of unicorns, pulling carts and carrying heavy burdens, walking away from a high mountain range. “Iron Wing’s order tore families apart and exiled an entire race from their home. The unicorns settled in a wide valley at the foothills of the mountain, which later came to be known as Unicornia. This betrayal is the basis for the enmity that still exists between thestrals and unicorns.

“Iron Wing’s plan succeeded, but it also very nearly destroyed the Nightlands. The unicorns that had once been allied with them had become their enemy, and Iron Wing discovered quickly that the Nightlands had depended on their unicorn population for much of their prosperity. That was on top of the intense discord and enmity he sowed among thestrals who had lost their unicorn husbands or wives when they were banished, and who could not sneak away to be with them due to the tyrannical controls Iron Wing had placed over the populace. Iron Wing spent the rest of his years struggling to hold his throne against those who had seen the truth of him and trying to keep his kingdom from flying apart at the seams.

“But it was when he died that the Nightlands truly fell apart. With no Lykans to speak for the Night Stone and choose a new Night King, and Iron Wing being hated and reviled by many of his subjects, the Nightlands fell into what you would know as the Clan Wars after he died. Iron Wing’s son Shadowhoof claimed the throne, and when the old noble families of the Nightlands challenged him for it, the kingdom descended into decades of war and chaos. Eventually, a thestral noble finally managed to defeat all rivals and claim the throne.”

“Bright Sky the Unifier,” Starjumper murmured.

Princess Celestia nodded, turning another page, showing a thestral wearing the crown and sitting on a huge throne. “But for the Lykans, Starjumper, he was no friend. When he learned the secret of the Lykans, instead of restoring the traditional ways, he instead not only continued them, but came up with the idea to spread rumors and lies about Lykans to all the other kingdoms and realms, forming the legends and stories that ponies still tell about Lykans to this day. He did so to further ensure that even if a Lykan was born, that the Lykan would be hated by those around him, feared, and find no safe haven from thestral assassins sent to kill them. He did this because he knew that if they were to return to the old ways, the Night Stone, which did not choose him, would have him deposed. So he furthered Iron Wing’s original plot so he could keep a throne he knew in his heart was not rightfully his. And as the years passed, as new Night Kings and Night Queens took the throne and learned the secret of the Lykans, they continued the practice to protect their rule.”

Starjumper was quiet for a long moment, then he sighed. “Well, that explains a whole lot,” he said. “So all the stories, all the legends, they were nothing but…a propaganda campaign.”

She nodded elegantly. “They feared that a Lykan like you would rise some day, Starjumper, a Lykan with the magical strength, skill, and support to survive to adulthood and pose a grave threat to their hold on power. They knew that the Night Stone would call out to you and cause you to return to the Nightlands, to put right the ancient wrong committed against the Nightlands and the Night Stone. And now that you know that, you can understand why you woke up in that bed with no memory.” She closed the book with her magic and set it aside. “Twilight told you that we believed that what happened with Moonshade was part of a prophecy.”

He nodded.

“She was correct,” she answered. “You are the Child of Sun and Moon, Starjumper. You are one of three, the Trinity, which the prophecy states will protect us from the King of Darkness.”

“Sombra,” Summer Dawn blurted.

Princess Celestia glanced to her, but said nothing. “That is what all of this has been about,” she continued. “The Night Queen didn’t send Moonshade here to kill you because you pose a threat to the Night Stone, my young Lykan, she sent her here to kill you because you are the only pony in the world that can stop her plan. The Night Queen and her father are trying to resurrect Sombra using the magic of the Night Stone, Starjumper. They see him as an ally in their plans of conquest, to return to the glory of their ancient past and be an empire once again, but they do not understand the trap they have laid for themselves. When they awaken Sombra’s spirit, young one, he will drain the Night Stone of its power, kill the Night Queen and her father, then take the throne of the Nightlands and use it to wage war on the rest of the world. The thestrals will become his army, compelled by their dependence on the Night Stone, which will give him their unswerving loyalty. And since you are the only pony alive that can touch the Night Stone, you are the only pony alive that can take it from them to prevent that from coming to pass.

“The prophecy states that the sun and the moon will call on the Trinity to protect them from the King of Darkness, Starjumper. And that happens right now. As the Princess of the sun, I ask you. Will you stand against this dark plot and save both Equestria and the Nightlands from certain ruin, war, and misery? Will you stand with Summer Dawn and Moonshade to stop the Night Queen before she does something terrible?”

He barely had to think about it. “When I was born, they came for me, Princess. They were going to kill me. But you saved me. You protected me from them and you made them sign the treaty to leave me alone. I owe you my life. I owe you the lives of my family. I owe you everything. You don’t even have to ask that of me, your Highness. I may not be a citizen of Equestria, but I will always be your humble servant. I will do what you ask, simply because you ask it. After everything you’ve done for me, it’s the least I can do for you. Besides, if what you say is right, then my own family is at risk. My mother, my sister, the aunt and uncle and cousins still in the Nightlands I’ve never met. I may not care much about the thestrals that have hunted me my whole life, but I care about them.”

She gave him a calm look, then nodded. “You are one of three, Starjumper. Summer Dawn is the Morning Rose, and you will need her magic to get you to the Night Stone. Moonshade is the Dusk Violet, and you will need her help once you reach the Nightlands. Her knowledge of her homeland and the Cathedral of Night will be invaluable. I presume you can work with Moonshade?”

“Can I trust her?”

“You can, Star,” Summer Dawn said. “She had no idea what her mother was planning, and she’s like ultra-mad. So mad she says she’s going to kill her own mother over what she’s done,” she blurted. “She said her mother committed treason against the Nightlands.”

“So, she won’t try to kill me the moment she walks in the room?”

“I can assure you, my young one, she will not,” Princess Celestia told him calmly. “Remember what is at stake here. If her mother succeeds, the Nightlands will be forever changed, the thestrals will become a force of evil in the world, eternal slaves to King Sombra. And if the Night Stone is destroyed by Sombra, then her entire race will become something much less than they are now.”

“So that part of the legend is true?” he asked.

“Almost. Most thestrals owe who they are to the Night Stone. It grants them their magic that allows them to fly, and to walk on clouds and walls. If it were to be destroyed, Moonshade would not lose her wings, she would not change into another pony, but she would lose her magic. She would never fly again, and lose her ability to walk on clouds and walk on walls. But, there is a very small segment of their population who would not lose their magic. They are the true thestrals, the original thestrals, and the basis of the magic the unicorns used when they created the Night Stone.”

“Whoa, wait, what? I think you left out a part of that story,” he said in surprise. “Unicorns made the Night Stone? You mean the thestrals were originally unicorns? Not earth ponies?”

She nodded. “When they came to the Nightlands, they had nowhere else to go,” she said, tapping the book with her hoof. “They were refugees seeking solace from the chaos that Discord had spread across the land, and they found themselves in the mountain home of the thestrals because, it seemed, Discord did not bother to wreak havoc there. He found the mountains too boring,” she said dryly. “They found the land too rugged and inhospitable to live there without great hardship, but they had little choice. But then they met the original thestrals. The thestrals took them in, gave them sanctuary, befriended them, and a partnership was forged. It was the cooperation of the unicorns and the thestrals that created the Night Stone, thestral magic forged into a receptacle by powerful unicorn magicians, which the unicorns made to grant them the spider magic possessed by the thestrals to make living in the mountains much easier for them. What they did not expect was that the magic of the Night Stone would affect them much more than that,” she said calmly. “Over half of their foals born under the effect of the magic were being born with wings instead of horns, and became the thestrals that we know today. Of the original thestrals, most of them died out in a great sickness that ravaged the Nightlands long, long ago. There are only a small number of them left. And if you think about it a moment, you will know who they are.”

He gave her a puzzled look, then he gasped, snapping his head up. “My family!” he exclaimed.

She nodded. “The Longwing clan, different from all other thestrals, identified by their very large wings. You are descended from the unaltered thestrals, my young Lykan, and it is your thestral magic that the unicorns used to create the Night Stone. If the Night Stone were to shatter tomorrow, you, your mother, your sister, and the rest of your family would not lose your thestral magic, because it is not the Night Stone that grants it to you. Your family is old beyond measure, Starjumper, and as noble as noble can be,” she smiled at him. “You and your clan are the last of the true thestrals. And that, my young one, makes you the true Lykan, a true marriage of unicorn and thestral. All other Lykans were a product of magic, but you are a product of bloodlines.”

“Huh,” he murmured. “Alright, that explains a lot. But you haven’t told me how I ended up in this bed.”

She sighed. “There was a fire in your apartment,” she answered. “You and Summer Dawn teleported right into it, you didn’t know about it. You were working on your cave and decided to return to start moving your things. You barely survived,” she said gravely. “If not for very quick thinking on both your parts, you would have perished. After you escaped the blaze, one of the ponies that had gathered at the sight of it taunted you, and it made you lose your temper. And when that happened, my young one, it allowed the Night Stone reached out to you. I told you that the Night Queen is using it to resurrect Sombra, which is putting the artifact under attack. It is besieged, in pain, and your anger allowed it to reach out to you. All its pain, all its fury was poured into you as it cried out for your help, begged you to come and put a stop to its pain, and it overwhelmed you. That is why Luna had to completely erase your memory of the event, Starjumper. You were not ready for that. The Night Stone inadvertently damaged your psyche, because it’s in too much pain to be subtle, or gentle. It reached out to you in desperation, and desperation can make all of us do things we did not intend. Starjumper, it is very, very important that you do not lose your temper again,” she warned, her face utterly serious. “The Night Stone may try to reach out to you again, and while it would never harm you on purpose, its own pain and desperation may make it go too far. It knows you’re coming. It knows you heard its cry, and will rescue it. But it’s best not to tempt fate.”

“I…I can understand what you mean. In a way, it yelled too loud trying to get my attention, and ended up giving me ringing ears.”

She nodded. “Exactly so. You are a Lykan, Starjumper, one of the chosen guardians of the Night Stone. It would never hurt you on purpose, but it is under so much duress that it lost itself when it sensed you. While you should not fear it, you should also take care that it does not hurt you by accident.”

“I understand,” he said, looking down at the bed, thinking about what he’d learned. So, all this time, he hadn’t been a danger to the Night Stone, he had been a danger to the Night King and Night Queen because he could bring about their removal from power. And for centuries, millennia, the rulers before them had perpetrated the same policy in order to protect their own power, demonizing the Lykans, maintaining the laws to prevent one from being born. What the Princess told him made sense when it was all taken together, it explained the true motives that had made Moonblade’s attack on him seem…unwise. And Princess Twilight had been right, he had been part of the prophecy, and his fight with Moonblade had been part of it.

What was truly surprising was to hear of the origin of the Night Stone, and the thestrals. He’d never believed that the thestrals had originally been other ponies, but it turned out to be true…well, almost. From what the Princess said, the thestrals created by the Night Stone were as much thestral as he was, only so long as the Night Stone was there to grant them their magic. Without it, they were ponies with vestigial wings, unable to fly. And it explained why his family had larger wings than other thestrals, because they were the original thestrals. But to find out that the Night Stone was a creation of the unicorns to grant them the spider magic enjoyed by the thestrals, then having that magic affect their foals and cause them to be born as thestrals instead of unicorns…that was something he would never have imagined. But, in an odd way, it did make sense. The foals were born under the effect of that magic, and the unicorns had made the Night Stone a little too perfect. No doubt they’d included thestral flight magic into its creation, faithfully reproducing the magical abilities of the thestrals, and that magic had infused their children, probably at conception, and produced magically-formed thestrals as a result. The story said that only some of the unicorns’ foals were born as thestrals, which explained why Lykans could be born in numbers in those days. The thestrals and unicorns intermarried, and they would occasionally produce a foal that was both unicorn and thestral.

Lykans.

He wondered what it had been like for the unicorns when Iron Wing banished them from their homes. By then, the Royal Sisters had defeated Discord and restored balance to the land, so they could leave the mountains and settle somewhere more suited for them. Families were torn apart, spouses separated, foals ripped away from parents, and they most likely had to adjust to losing the magical boons granted to them by the Night Stone, which was why it was created in the first place. They had to have been almost traumatized, living in what to them would be an alien environment and stripped of the magical gifts granted to them by the ancient relic. And it also explained why they didn’t go very far, deciding to settle in the foothills of the Misty Mountains, literally within sight of the border of the Nightlands. It was no wonder that the unicorns of Unicornia were so distrustful and suspicious of the thestrals today, since it was built on the pain of a betrayal that happened so long ago that none of them likely remembered it. And it also explained why the unicorns of Unicornia looked so different from other unicorns, both western and eastern. They had traces of thestral lineage in them, which was why they were bigger than their cousins to the east and the west.

It struck him that it was entirely possible that his father’s family had Unicornian ancestry. Size was a trait of the unicorn side of his family, and Unicornian unicorns were said to be very large.

That was nothing like Summer Dawn. He looked over at her, seeing the concern in her eyes and the gentle smile on her face. The Princess said that he would need her help to reach the Night Stone, and it was no surprise why. She was immensely powerful, one of the most powerful unicorns to walk the streets of Canterlot, and that kind of raw power would only be an asset when it came to sneaking into the Cathedral of Night and taking the Night Stone to prevent Sombra from being resurrected back into the world. But…was she ready for something like that? She was three months older than him, but her sheltered life made her almost foal-like in some ways, naïve about the realities of the world beyond Canterlot’s borders. It made her quite charming, but in something this serious, it could be a major liability. But the one thing he could not fault about her was her courage. She may not have any idea what she was about to get into, but she’d march right into it because she knew it was the right thing to do, and Summer Dawn would do the right thing. Really, she was one of the bravest ponies he’d ever known.

Well, he could make her ready for something like this. He’d already taught her a few very useful spells in real world situations, and had started teaching her the Mana Bolt spell, which would give her a very dangerous means to attack her enemies. But for a trip like this, where speed was going to be critical, there was one spell she absolutely had to learn, for it would be pivotal in their success…and it wasn’t a spell she would consider to be anywhere near as useful as it was.

“What about you, Summer? Where do you stand in this?”

“That’s a silly question,” she replied. “I’ll go. I’ll help. It’s a little scary to think about doing something like this, but the Princess needs me. You need me,” she declared. “At night, you won’t have your magic, but I will. The thestrals that might try to stop us won’t be ready for that. You’ve taught me so much, Star. If we can get Moonshade to take a mirror into the room where they have the Night Stone, we can teleport in from miles away. And if that happens at night, then you’ll need me there to cast the spell.”

“Both Summer Dawn and Moonshade have declared their support,” Princess Celestia told him. “And they’ve been discussing the matter.”

“Moonshade’s actually not that bad,” Summer Dawn told him. “If you can get past her bark, she’s a nice pony. And wow is she an amazing flyer!” she said animatedly. “She could give a Wonderbolt a run for her money!”

“She’s a thestral soldier, of course she’s going to be a very skilled flyer,” he said absently. “Your Highness, if the Night Queen has already started her plot, then we don’t have much time. I take it you’ve arranged to get us over to the Eastern Kingdoms?”

She nodded. “I have a fast ship waiting in Manehattan,” she answered. “It will get you to Maretonia. From there, you can fly to the Nightlands.”

“How long to get to Maretonia?”

“About two weeks,” she replied.

“That’s too long,” he frowned. “We’ll have to fly it.”

“That’s four days of constant flight over open ocean, my young one,” she warned. “With no islands to offer respite.”

“We don’t need islands,” he replied, trying to get up, but Summer Dawn’s weight on the comforter pinned him down. “All we need is the Stratus Barrel from the shop.”

Princess Celestia gave him a surprised look. “Your family owns a Stratus Barrel?” she asked.

“Yes,” he replied. “Dad bought it from a Las Pegasus merchant two years ago.”

“What’s a Stratus Barrel?” Summer Dawn asked.

“It’s a magical water barrel that can store clouds without damaging them,” he answered her. “The clouds they store aren’t that big, but it only has to be big enough to fit the three of us on it so we can rest.”

“Oh. That sounds kinda cool,” she said. “Why did your Dad buy it?”

“For Mom, as an emergency plan if she ever had to go back to the Nightlands and get there in a hurry,” he replied. “That way she could fly there without needing to take a boat. Whenever she’d get tired, she’d just let the cloud out of the barrel and sleep on it, then put it back in the barrel when she was done and continue on her way.”

“A most clever plan that will help us now,” Princess Celestia nodded in appreciation.

“But no matter how urgently we need to leave, your Highness, we can’t leave until I teach Summer Dawn a spell. The most important spell she could learn for this journey.”

“Ohhhh, what? You'll finish teaching me the Mana Bolt spell? Some other powerful battle magic?”

He looked at her. “The shrink spell.”

She gave him a startled look, missing Princess Celestia’s approving nod. “The shrink spell? How in the world would that be the most important spell I could learn?”

“Because you’re not thinking about what it can do, because you’re too busy thinking about how it’s not flashy,” he chided her. “You have no idea how useful that spell is, Summer. It’s easily as useful as teleportation, if you think creatively. And you are absolutely going to need to know that spell if you’re going to go with us.”

“Why?”

“Because I’m sure as Luna’s moon not going to carry you on my back the whole way there with you at your full size,” he answered. “You’re going to shrink yourself down and ride in a saddlebag, so your weight doesn’t slow us down or interfere with our ability to maneuver. And in the daytime, both of us are going to be riding with Moonshade, and I’m sure she won’t appreciate hauling both of us around unless we’re easy to carry.”

“I didn’t think of that!” she admitted.

“And that’s why you don’t see the potential of the spell,” he told her bluntly. “The most useful magic in the world isn’t what’s sparkly or flashy or impressive, Summer, it’s what’s versatile. Some of the simplest spells in magic are among the most powerful if you know how to apply them to the situation. The shrink spell is one of the most versatile spells you’ll ever learn, and we’re going to need it to move quickly and without weighing ourselves down, yet still carry everything we need for a long journey.”

“Listen to him, Summer Dawn,” Princess Celestia said in her stately voice.

“Oh, I do, your Highness, even when he’s being a smug jerk,” she replied, giving him a grin and a wink.

“How long do you think it will take for her to learn the spell?” the Princess asked.

“As fast as she learns, maybe three or four days. I can teach her the basics, then teach her the more advanced applications while we’re on the move. Once she gets to the point where she can shrink something down to the size of a grasshopper and charge it to last at least twelve hours, she’ll be ready.”

“That should give us time to get everything arranged,” the Princess nodded. “And you time to rest.”

“There’s no time to rest,” he said, using his magic to lift Summer Dawn off the comforter, then he stood up, pulled it off of himself, then stepped down onto the floor in front of the Princess. Summer Dawn stepped up to stand with him. “Did…did they save anything from my apartment?”

“I’m afraid not, Starjumper,” the Princess answered, shaking her head.

“Well, the library has the books I need. I got most of them from there in the first place,” he said in a neutral voice. “How long was I asleep?”

“A little over a full day,” she answered. “It’s about half an hour until sunset.”

“That gives me a little time,” he noted.

“To do what?” Summer Dawn asked.

“Make the saddlebags we’ll be riding in,” he answered. “They have to have supports in them so they don’t collapse and crush us, and a flat bottom so we have a stable foundation. And you’ll need to learn the rules of being tiny.”

“Rules?”

“Being the size of an insect introduces an entirely different set of rules into your life,” he told her. “Me and Silver Moon learned them as foals, when we used to play with the shrink spell, you know, shrink ourselves down to the size of a mouse and run around the shop. We thought it was really cool, until the day Silver Moon was nearly killed by Dancer. She almost stepped on him.”

“Whoa,” Summer Dawn breathed.

“But that’s just one of the way things are different, and you need to learn those rules so you don’t hurt yourself or make yourself sick.”

“How could that happen? I mean, you’re just smaller.”

“I’ll explain it all later,” he said. “Your Highness, could you have somepony bring me something you can afford to lose?” he asked. “So I can use it as the material for a transfiguration spell.”

The Princess looked to the side, then floated over a small table holding a vase. “Will these do?”

“I guess, if you don’t mind wasting them.”

“We make them the same way you’re about to make your saddlebags,” she said with a smile and a conspiratorial wink. “So I’m not losing anything valuable, my young Lykan.”

“You know what you’re making?” Summer Dawn asked.

He nodded. “I have one back in Baltimare. We designed it so I could carry Silver Moon around with me when I fly. I left it there so Mom and Songbird can carry around Dad and Silver Moon. So we have enough experience with this for me to make something that works.”

“Your parents are here, Starjumper,” the Princess said. “That was how Nightsong carried Comet Tail. So the bags are here now if you need it.”

“Really? Good. Anyway, I’ll just make another now that I can use transfiguration magic,” he said absently. “Actually, two more, I’ll need one for when I have my wings. That way Moonshade can ride in the bag and sleep while I’m flying us.” His horn surged with magic, and a golden aura enshrouded it. The vase lifted up off the table and was set on the floor beside it, then the table squashed itself down and glowed so intensely that its form was lost in the light. When the light faded, the table was gone and a pair of saddlebags were resting on the floor in its place, with a wide, stout back strap and a long strap that ran underneath and buckled at the side to secure it to him. They were fairly large bags, one of them meant to carry cargo and the other meant to carry ponies. The pony bag had mesh windows on the sides so those within could breathe and see outside. “And there we are,” he announced, lifting the bag up and setting it on his own back. “I see I remember my own size. I’ll make the other with adjustable straps, since I’m not exactly sure of Moonblade’s size.”

“Moonshade, Starjumper. She refuses to go by her title.”

“Well, I guess she’s pretty serious about going after her mother, then,” he grunted. “Let me make the other bag, then I can go see my parents.”

“They’re in your cave, along with Fancy Pants and Fleur de Lis,” Princess Celestia told him. “They decided to decorate it a bit while you were recovering. I’ll be along with Luna and Moonshade after I lower the sun and she raises the moon, and we’ll discuss what must be done with you and your parents.”

“You let your parents in my apartment?” he asked, looking at Summer Dawn.

“They were curious,” she replied. “They think the house you made for yourself is really clever. They think you could expand it back into the mountain and make something really, really cool.”

“I doubt I’ll be staying here,” he said quietly.

“Things have changed, Starjumper,” Princess Celestia said. “The ponies of Canterlot know the truth about you, that you are nothing what the old stories say.”

“They knew that already, and somepony burned down my apartment.”

“That fire changed things, my young one,” she told them. “It awoke many in Canterlot to the extent to which the rumors they were spreading could do real harm. And I will say that I have never been more disappointed in them,” she said with hard eyes. “I was quite clear to voice my displeasure this morning when I addressed the city. And when I find out who is responsible for the fire, the punishment will be quite harsh.”

“A lot of ponies are really upset,” Summer Dawn said. “Especially when the Princess told them how wrong they were. They treated you so badly, and then they found out it was all over a lie. The Princess told them what she told you, that everything we were told about Lykans was all so we’d drive them away.”

“Yes, and I’ve taken steps to put things right. Including having Donut Joe reopen his diner,” the Princess stated.

“I’m glad to hear that, I was almost sick over what happened to him,” he said with sincere emotion. “He was always so nice to me, and all he got out of it is losing the diner he’s owned for forty years.”

“He will reopen his diner in a couple of days,” she assured him with a smile. “Luckily, had had yet to empty out the building. He’d broken down his kitchen appliances and packed up most of his utensils to sell them. Once he puts everything back in working order, he’ll be open again. And I will be the first customer waiting at the doors,” she declared with a smile. “He does have the most delicious food. I often send out my guards to bring me back his donuts and coffee.”

“I’m happy to hear that, your Highness, but I’ll believe that the ponies have changed their minds when I see proof of it,” he said guardedly.

“I understand, my young one,” she told him with a solemn nod. “But don’t make any plans. When you finish your mission to the Nightlands, I expect you back here in Canterlot.”

“If I may ask, your Highness, why?”

“Because it’s my Royal privilege to ensure that you are here to teach those that don’t do well in the school’s system,” she replied with a gentle smile, glancing at Summer Dawn. “I will have you tutor those like Summer Dawn, Starjumper. Unicorns with hidden potential that will only bloom and grow with a teacher that understands them and their needs. You will work by Royal contract as a tutor, providing one on one instruction for the brightest minds of the next generation. And under your guidance, my young one, they will become what they were meant to be.”

“Well…I’ll think about it, your Highness.”

“That is fair enough,” she replied gracefully. “Now, I’m sure that your parents and Summer Dawn’s family will be quite happy to see you,” she prompted.

“I just hope the rock bat didn’t go after them.”

“I introduced them, Star, Rocky’s fine,” Summer Dawn told him.

“Good. Levitate yourself, Summer. I can’t teleport us into the cave, since I don’t know where they are inside. And knowing my mother, she’s rearranged the furniture,” he said darkly, which made Summer Dawn laugh. “I knew it,” he sighed. “I’m going to teleport us outside the door, so you’re going to reappear high in the air.”

“Thanks for the warning,” she said as her body was enshrouded by her pink magic, and her hooves lifted up off the floor. “Ready.”

“We’ll be along after sunset, Starjumper,” the Princess reminded him.

“We’ll be waiting, your Highness.” And with that, he teleported himself and Summer Dawn to a spot outside the new house. He reappeared standing on the cliff, facing down and clinging to the rock, and Summer Dawn reappeared floating in midair below him, directly in front of the door. She opened it as he walked down the rock face, then he curled up and under the top of the door and twisted a bit as he dropped off the stone, landing on the doorway. His parents and Summer Dawn’s parents were inside, and Luna had they really gone crazy! His bookshelves were full of new books and scrolls, there was new furniture in addition to the furniture he’d made using magic, and the kitchen was fully stocked with pots and pans. They had replaced most of what he’d lost in the fire!

“I say, Starjumper! It’s good to see you up, lad!” Fancy Pants called loudly when he looked towards the open door. His mother and father rushed over to him, and gave him a crushing hug.

“We had no idea you were awake!” Nightsong said. “They said you probably wouldn’t wake up until tomorrow!”

“I just woke up a little bit ago. Princess Celestia told me what happened. After I got over the seizure, anyway,” he grunted.

“They had to use magic on you, you were constantly jerking and convulsing, even in your sleep,” Comet Tail said. “Princess Luna said it was a side effect of the magic they used on you to erase your memory.”

“The Princess told me about that, all of it,” he said as he accepted a fond hug from Fleur de Lis, then touched hooves with Fancy Pants. “I almost can’t believe it.”

“She told us as well,” Fancy Pants said as Summer Dawn floated in and landed behind him, then closed the door. “I knew our faith in you wasn’t misplaced, my boy. And let me tell you, are many of our so-called friends quite chagrined now,” he said, almost vindictively. “Princess Celestia gave quite a speech this morning, and her speech was the verbal equivalent of spanking the entire city. I’ve never seen her that angry in public before.”

“You and Fleur and Summer have been true friends, Fancy Pants,” Starjumper said with gratitude. “You stood by me even when your own lives started suffering for it. I can’t thank you enough.”

“It was the right thing to do, lad,” he replied. “And this family does what is right, even when other ponies tell us it’s wrong.”

“Well said, dear,” Fleur de Lis agreed emphatically.

“I see you’ve been busy in here,” he said, looking around.

“We thought it would be nice if you came home to something that seemed more cozy,” Nightsong told him. “Summer Dawn helped us find the kinds of books you like and Fancy Pants and Fleur de Lis had your father bring some furniture from their attic up to add a little character. And we had Silver Moon send some of the things you left at home. Really, son, did you have to make your house look like the waiting room of a dentist’s office?” she challenged, which made Summer Dawn giggle.

“You’re one to talk, Mom,” he accused right back.

“You’ve seen what I have to work with back home,” she replied airily.

“Did…did you salvage anything from the apartment?”

“I’m afraid not, son,” Comet Tail answered. “Everything was a complete loss. Including your clock.”

“I…I don’t need that clock anymore,” he said. “It was part of my old life. This is my new one.”

“As happy as I am to hear that, son, having a new clock may not be a bad idea, if only so it wakes you up in the morning so you don’t get ash in your bed,” he replied. “I’ll make you a new one and send it as soon as it’s ready. A nice one, like a grandfather clock, something you don’t need to carry around with you. I think it would look rather nice sitting right there,” he said, pointing across the room.

“That wouldn’t be so bad, I suppose,” Starjumper said.

Princess Celestia was quite punctual. Barely five minutes after she lowered the sun and Luna raised the moon, and Starjumper changed, the Royal Sisters arrived at his new house with Moonshade in tow. The thestral was wearing her armor, and she looked around as she entered his new house. She came up to the others with the Princesses, as they all bowed to them, then stood beside the couch that Princess Celestia and Princess Luna decided to occupy. “I’m not sure what Starjumper told you, but he’s come up with a fairly clever plan to get to the Nightlands quickly,” Princess Celestia began. “They’ll be sacrificing a few days to prepare Summer Dawn for her part of the plan, but make up for it by getting to the Nightlands in seven days once they start out.”

“A week? It takes two weeks to get across the sea,” Moonshade protested.

“We won’t be taking a boat. We’re going to be flying across,” Starjumper told her.

“And exactly where in the sea are you planning for us to crash from exhaustion and drown?” she challenged.

“Like the Princess said, we have a plan,” Starjumper answered her, spreading his wings to work out a bit of stiffness, flexing the finger bones that ran through the membranes to curl his wings, straightening them out to stretch them, then folding them back. “My family owns a magical device that will let us carry a cloud. We just let the cloud out and rest on it, then put it back in the device and move on when we’re ready.”

“That’s going to work for us, but she’ll fall right through,” Moonshade said, flicking her muzzle towards Summer Dawn.

“There’s a spell that will allow her to walk on clouds like a thestral,” Princess Celestia told her.

“And how are we carrying her? Taking turns letting her ride on our backs?”

“She won’t be a burden,” he answered. “There’s a unicorn spell that will shrink her down to the size of a grasshopper. She’s going to ride along in a saddlebag. We’re going to use that spell as well, Moonshade. At any time, only one of us is going to be flying. You in the daytime, me at night. When we’re not flying, we’ll be shrunk down too and in the pouch so we can sleep. That way we only have to land to change flyers and take breaks to rest a little and eat. If we do it right, we can cross the sea in three or four days. It’s three more days on to the Nightlands, and then it’ll be up to you to get us to the Night Stone. As soon as Summer Dawn learns the shrink spell, we’ll be going. We sacrifice a little time now to save a whole lot more later.”

She was quiet a long moment. “That’ll work,” she concluded with a nod. “It’ll also hide her when we reach the Nightlands, that way we won’t be attracting attention. Neither will you, at least at night. Most thestrals don’t know what you look like, so they won’t know you’re a Lykan. You just have to use a different name. Starjumper is a name every thestral knows.”

“Then I’ll go by Moonstar,” he replied. “That’s the name I use as a thestral, or at least I did, and I answer to it. Any pony that knows me as a thestral knows me by that name.”

“Well, your cutie mark backs up that name,” she said, looking at his flank.

“The fact that my cutie mark changes along with me makes it easy for me to pretend I’m somepony else at night,” he said dryly. “How long will it take us to reach the Cathedral of Night once we reach the Nightlands?”

“Two days,” she answered. “The Cathedral is on the east side of the kingdom, not far from the Ice Mountains. Getting in is going to be tricky, though. To get through, you have to pass through an arch that dispels all magic.”

“The only question is, is the entire building warded against magic, or just the entrances?”

“Just the entrances,” she answered.

“Then we have a very easy way to get the Night Stone,” he declared confidently. “You just have to carry in a mirror.”

“That’s brilliant!” Comet Tail blurted.

“What makes it so brilliant, Starjumper?” Fleur de Lis asked politely.

“I know a spell that will let me look through a mirror,” Starjumper answered. “If Moonshade can get that mirror into the room where they have the Night Stone and point the mirror’s face so it faces the Night Stone, and I’ll be able to see it and teleport both her and the Night Stone right out of the room. And if that doesn’t work, then we can teleport into the room and take it the old fashioned way, then teleport out once we have it. We won’t have to try to sneak through or fight our way in. Since she's the Moonblade and her mother is the Night Queen, she can get into the Cathedral of Night and most likely get into the room holding the Night Stone without challenge. She gets the mirror there, and I can take the Night Stone without so much as setting hoof in the building. I can do it from twenty miles away, for that matter.”

She gave him a surprised look. “Alright, that’s pretty clever,” she admitted.

“There has never been an instance where a unicorn’s special talent in a magic spell would be so incredibly important,” Luna declared. “Starjumper’s unique mastery of teleportation magic will allow him to steal the Night Stone right out from under the Night Queen’s nose, and from a distance that will make it almost impossible for them to catch you before you escape the Nightlands.”

“I can see that,” Moonshade said thoughtfully. “Summer Dawn told me about the mirror trick, but I wasn't completely sold on it until now. I like it. I can get the mirror into the room. We take the Night Stone, then fly for the border as fast as we can.”

“No, we reach the border in a matter of minutes,” Starjumper replied, looking at Summer Dawn. “Summer Dawn will get us out of the Nightlands in three teleports. We just need to select proper landing spots that are close enough together for her to teleport the three of us and the Night Stone without exhausting herself. The second we have the Night Stone, Summer Dawn teleports us to those locations in stages, and we cross the entire Nightlands and get out in a matter of minutes. We’ll be out of the Nightlands before the Night Queen can even call out the alarm.”

“I’m liking this plan better and better,” Moonshade said with a smile. “Can you do that, little slip?”

“Yes I can,” she said, almost defiantly. “Star already taught me how to teleport passengers along with me. I can get us out of the Nightlands quick, so long as we set things up on our way in the way he said.”

“A simple yet very effective plan,” Princess Celestia agreed. “And one I believe the Night Queen would never suspect possible.”

“It’s the thestral in him, your Highness,” Nightsong said proudly. “If he wasn’t sneaky, he’d be no foal of mine.”

“Now that we have a framework, let’s plan out the specifics,” Fancy Pants prompted.

The Princesses produced a map of the eastern continent with magic, and the nine of them sat in a circle around it and plotted out their route, selected appropriate landing spots for both Summer Dawn and Starjumper to use in case of emergency, and identified the major population centers along their planned route where they could resupply if necessary. But, one thing that the Princesses did add to their journey was to stop at the capitol cities of both Maretonia and Unicornia to warn the rulers about what was going on, in case their plan failed. They needed to be ready if Sombra took control of the thestrals and invaded. It only added maybe three hours to their journey, given they’d fly directly over the capitol of Maretonia and come very close to the capitol of Unicornia. Nightsong was invaluable for the planning when it came to the Nightlands, because she knew the kingdom much better than Moonshade did, knew of isolated caves that they could use as safe places to rest on the way in and landing spots for their escape.

Because the plan was deceptively simple, they had everything worked out in about three hours. Starjumper rolled up the map and put it in a saddlebag for their trip as Nightsong served them some mintroot rolls, another thestral dish. “Alright, now we just wait for Summer Dawn to be ready for the trip,” Moonshade said, looking in her direction.

“Hopefully, I can learn what I need to know of the spell in a few days,” she replied. “Star’s a really good teacher, and it’s a spell he’s known a long time. We can start tomorrow, after he’s had a chance to completely recover.”

“I’m fine, you big worrier,” he challenged. “But I can’t really start you on the spell until tomorrow anyway. I need my horn, because you’ll be starting on the spell’s casting within an hour of me teaching you the matrix.”

“I’ll have the supplies you need for the journey delivered here tomorrow morning,” Princess Celestia told them, then she nibbled on one of the rolls. “This is quite good, Nightsong.”

“The mintroot was fresh, and that always makes for good rolls,” she replied with a smile.

“There’s one more thing I’ll be sending up here tomorrow,” Princess Luna added. “Armor for both Starjumper and Summer Dawn.”

“Armor? Like the EUP’s armor?” Summer Dawn asked.

“You are going into hostile territory, and facing ponies that will do you harm if you’re caught,” she answered. “So you will need armor. There are several suits of thestral armor still in the castle after we banished the thestral guards,” she nearly snarled, “And we can alter those to suit both of you. It will serve the further goal of making you look like you belong in the Nightlands, Starjumper. If you are wearing a soldier’s armor, you are much less likely to be challenged.”

“Sound thinking,” Princess Celestia nodded.

“I’ve never worn anything like that before,” Summer Dawn said apprehensively.

“You get used to it. I forget I have mine on so often, I’ve tried to go to bed wearing it,” Moonshade told her. “Way more than once.”

“I’ve never worn armor either, so we’ll both be learning,” Starjumper told her. “I figure Summer Dawn will have the shrink spell learned enough to do what she needs to do in three days. Maybe four,” he continued. “So I’m more or less looking at us leaving on Tuesday. I can have all our supplies shrunk down and ready to go a few hours after it gets here.”

“So, how does that work?” Moonshade asked. “Does it get lighter as well as smaller?”

“If you cast the spell the right way, yes,” he nodded. “When I’m done, three crates worth of goods will fit into a single saddlebag, and it won’t weigh much more than if you had a couple of books in it.”

“And we’ll be the same way?”

“Yes. And that reminds me, you need to be here tomorrow morning when I start Summer on the spell. There are some special conditions involved in what you can and can’t do when you’re shrunk that you need to know.”

“I’ll be busy tomorrow. You can tell me now,” she answered.

“I’ll explain them to her tomorrow, Starjumper,” Princess Luna said.

“Alright, your Highness,” he replied with a nod.

“Then I’d say we’re just about done,” Princess Celestia announced. “We’ll have those supplies delivered in the morning, Starjumper. Until then, I want you to rest. You’re only mostly recovered from your ordeal. You need one more night of rest, and then you’ll be ready to start preparing for your task to come.”

“Yes ma’am,” he replied with a nod.

“I could use a good night’s sleep myself,” Fleur de Lis declared. “We should give him a chance to get used to his new house,” she prompted.

“We’ll be back up in the morning to help you with those supplies, son,” Comet Tail said. “I can shrink them down and pack them while you’re getting Summer Dawn started on the shrink spell.”

“And I can help you with the armor. I’ve worn it before,” Nightsong added. “I’ll show you how you put it on and take it off. You can use magic to resize the pieces to suit you.”

“I say, my friend, perhaps you can show me this shrink spell?” Fancy Pants asked. “It sounds incredibly useful.”

“If you can teleport, you can manage that spell,” Comet Tail answered. “I don’t have time to teach you the whole thing, but I can get you started on the basics. And I’ll send up a copy of the book we use to learn it when I get home, so you can finish. Or, you can pester Star to finish up for you when he gets home,” he smiled.

“I’d be happy to,” Starjumper agreed. “You and Fleur get to learn for free. Summer still has to pay.”

Hey!” Summer Dawn protested, which made most of them laugh.

“We’ll leave you to get some rest,” Princess Celestia told him, a clear dismissal for the others. “Remember, friends, teleport out. We give the city no hints as to where his new house is.”

“Easily done,” Fancy Pants said proudly. “My dear, are you ready to go home?” he asked his wife.

“Just don’t burn my mane this time,” she warned as she stepped up to him.

“I’ll do my best. We’ll see you at home, Summer,” he said, and then he and Fleur de Lis vanished in a circular burst of azure magic.

“He has gotten good at that,” Comet Tail chuckled.

“He was a very good student,” Starjumper said as Nightsong stepped up to her husband.

“I’m ready, dear,” she assured him.

“Then we’ll be back in the morning, son,” he said. “I’ll land over there, so don’t stack anything in that spot,” he added, pointing at the empty area on the side of the room, near where he’d indicated the grandfather clock could go.

“I’ll keep it empty,” he promised.

“Have a good night, ducky,” Nightsong said, then the two of them vanished in a circular burst of blue magic, his father’s magic, and a color not too far from Fancy Pants’ own.

“I will have a new mailbox sent with the supplies, Starjumper, so you may contact us if you need anything,” Princess Celestia told him as Moonshade stepped up to stand between the Royal Sisters.

“Tomorrow night, we’re going out so I can see how good you are on the wing, Starjumper,” Moonshade told him. “I’ll teach you a few basic combat maneuvers, just in case we get into a scrape long the way, though I doubt I’ll have to teach you much,” she said with a dark smile. “You held your own against the Night Blades. And you’ll need to practice flying with the armor. Its weight does change how you fly.”

“I’ll be happy to have you there to teach me,” he told her.

“Don’t keep him up too long, Summer Dawn,” Luna told her, a bit cheekily. Then the three of them vanished in a circular burst of golden magic.

Summer Dawn almost blushed when she looked up at him, then started pushing him imperiously towards the bed. “You heard the Princess. Bed!” she commanded.

“Alright, alright, pushy mare,” he grunted, walking towards the new bed. “I am a little tired.”

She supervised as he climbed into bed, settling in as she put the blanket over him., standing beside the bed and looking down at him with concern. “I’m glad you’re okay,” she told him. “When they brought you to the palace and you were convulsing, I was so worried.”

“I woke up with that spell paralyzing me still in effect, so that was a bit scary,” he told her. “I woke up and couldn’t move. I didn’t know what was wrong at first, because I didn’t remember anything.”

She gave him a compassionate look. “How do you feel now? The Princess said there may be lingering side effects.”

“I feel alright, outside of feeling like I haven’t slept for three days,” he answered. “How do you feel about all this?”

“I’m a little scared, but that’s understandable, I suppose,” she answered. “I’ve never done anything like this before.”

“I’ll feel much safer with you being there,” he told her honestly, which made her beam.

“I’ll be there to protect you, Star,” she said with a playful smile. “You’re way too young to be out there by yourself, you know.” She laughed at his cool look. “And way too silly.”

“You’re only three months older than me, mare,” he retorted coolly.

“But you’ve shown me just how much a difference three months can make in a pony’s life, Star,” she grinned. “Three months ago, I was failing school and didn’t know what to do with my life. And look where I am now.”

“Now you’re just a pain in my neck,” he snorted.

“Blame yourself for that,” she winked. “Now, you get some sleep, and I’ll be back right after sunrise, okay?”

“Be ready to work,” he warned. “We have no time to waste.”

“I will,” she nodded. “I’ll see you in the morning, Star. Have a good night.”

“You too.”

She gave him a smile, took a step back, then vanished in a circular burst of pink magic, leaving him alone in the room. But he didn’t have time to ponder on that, or on the upcoming mission, or much of anything, because barely thirty seconds after Summer Dawn vanished from the apartment, he was sound asleep.

Summer Dawn was right on time, appearing in the apartment barely a minute after sunrise, as Starjumper was cleaning up the ash from his morning transformation. The night’s sleep had done wonders for him, and he’d awoken refreshed and feeling right as rain. This morning’s change was even decent, it didn’t seem like it hurt as much as usual, and mornings were the worst of the two changes due to his wings burning off. There was no muscle pain, no weakness, not so much as a tremble in any joint, and his mind was clear and sharp, focused on the task at hoof. There were three major objectives for the day, and they were all related. He needed to get Summer Dawn started on shrink spells, he had to organize and prepare their supplies, and tonight, he would take his first real lesson in flying while wearing armor. He knew how to fight in the air, his mother had taught him that, but he’d never worn armor before.

“Good morning, Star,” she said as she trotted up to him. “How do you feel?”

“I feel just fine,” he replied, floating a cushion over from the couch and setting it on the stone floor. She took off her saddlebag, at least after fishing out a large carnelian for Rocky and setting it on the table, then came over and sat down on the cushion. “You ready?”

“I’m ready,” she said with some enthusiasm, looking up at him eagerly.

“Shrink spells,” he began, sitting down on the floor in front of her. “Are both just as dangerous as teleportation and much simpler at the same time. They’re dangerous in that not following the rules can get you killed, similar to teleportation. But they’re simpler in that they’re not nearly as hard to cast. But what truly makes this spell potentially dangerous, Summer, is what you do after you’ve cast it,” he warned. “I told you yesterday that there are a special set of rules that you have to obey when you’re shrunk, and they’re important. Not following them can make you very sick, if not kill you, so it’s absolutely imperative that you understand those rules now, before I even start teaching you the spell.”

“Okay.”

“The most important thing you have to understand when it comes to shrinking a living thing is that the way that shrunk pony interacts with the unshrunk world can be deadly if they intermix too much. First and foremost, Summer, if you’re shrunk, you never, ever, eat or drink anything that wasn’t shrunk along with you at the same time. Not even water,” he warned. “If you do, when you return to your normal size, it causes you to pass out, or even go into a coma. And if you’ve eaten too much unshrunk food, you’ll die minutes after the spell wears off.”

She blanched a little, then nodded enthusiastically.

“When you shrink yourself for the journey, you’re going to be carrying saddlebags holding all the food and water you need for the time you’ll be shrunk,” he told her. “And that’s the only food and water you consume. You don’t even eat food that me or Moonshade might be carrying, because it wasn’t shrunk along with you.”

“I wonder why that is,” she mused.

“I don’t know, but it’s a rule, and we have to follow it,” he answered. “Needless to say, you also never eat or drink shrunk food or water, for obvious reasons.”

“When the spell wears off, it’ll return to normal size inside you.”

“Exactly,” he nodded. “And that would be a very fast and very painful way to die.”

“No doubt.”

“The next thing you have to understand is that when you’re the size of a bug, the world becomes much more hostile to you,” he continued. “A gentle breeze as a pony is a howling gale that could blow you away when you’re shrunk down, and water is particularly dangerous because of surface tension. You don’t ever get anywhere near water when you’re shrunk. If you fall in and go under, you can’t break surface tension and drown before you can get out. And when it’s raining, a raindrop can hit with the force of a boulder, so don’t leave shelter when it’s raining.”

“I understand.”

“The change in size also affects your ability to communicate,” he continued. “You’ll be able to understand a pony that’s not shrunk, but their voices will sound so deep to you that you’ll need a little practice with it until you get the hang of it. When it comes to you talking to an unshrunk pony, that’s even harder. Not only would what you say barely be audible, it would be even quieter than the faintest whisper, it’ll be so high-pitched that only a thestral will be able to easily hear you, due to the fact that thestral ears can hear much higher ranges of sound than pony ears. If we need to talk to Moonshade while she’s flying, we’ll have to use magic to do it.”

“Okay. What about two shrunk ponies? Can they talk to each other?”

“Yes, but our voices will sound very different,” he replied. “And since we’re leaving Equestria, the last thing you need to consider is that to a predatory animal, when you’re the size of an insect, you’re prey,” he warned. “So don’t think that some cute little mouse is going to be nice to you when you’re the size of something he’d usually kill and eat. So when you’re shrunk, you consider any animal, no matter how benign or cuddly, as a potential threat.”

“Got it.”

“Now, this is the part that causes unicorns the most problems, Summer. When you’re shrunk, your magic works exactly the same as if you were normal size,” he said intensely. “That means that if you try to conjure a globe of light and don’t make one scaled to your current size, you’re going to make one proportional to your normal size, which would be a gigantic globe when you’re shrunk. The magic you channel doesn’t see your size as being anything different, so all your normal ranges are going to remain the same when you’re shrunk down. That means that when you’re the size of a grasshopper, you can still levitate the same amount of weight you can when you’re normal size. But there’s a catch there, which I think you can see if you think about it.”

“I’d be channeling the same amount of magic in a tiny body. It would tire me out much faster from the effort of channeling the magic.”

“Precisely,” he nodded with a proud expression. “You can learn to choke back your magic so it more or less scales with your new size, casting tiny spells to correspond with a tiny body, but that’s something you don’t really need to learn for this trip. I’ll teach you that when we get home. Just remember that when you’re using magic when you’re shrunk, it’s much more exhausting, so don’t play around. Save your energy for when you need it. Remember, Summer, we’re going into hostile territory, so when you need it may mean we need your magic to save our flanks. So don’t wear yourself out playing with magic.”

“You can count on me, Star,” she told him confidently.

“The last thing you need to know, and it’s going to matter since it’s winter, is the cold. The cold is much more dangerous when you’re shrunk down, because what little heat you have is lost faster when it’s very cold outside. When we go, each of us is going to be carrying a heat stone in a torc around our necks that will keep us warm for the trip, both to keep me and Moonshade from freezing when we fly, and also to protect us from the cold when we’re shrunk down. I’m also going to put heat stones in the bags we’ll be using to protect the inside against the cold wind when we’re flying. Do not lose your heat stone, Summer. Your life is going to depend on it. And if for some reason you do lose your heat stone and you find yourself in an exposed area, without a heat source, you unshrink yourself immediately,” he warned.

“Got it.”

“Alright, let me show you the spell matrix, and you can start practicing.”

His parents arrived while he was teaching Summer Dawn the spell, and they got to work with barely a word of greeting. The Princess must have arranged things with his father, because the first thing he did when he got ready to work was teleport in two large crates; the Princess must have showed him where the supplies were, which would allow him to teleport them to the cave. He then opened them and started organizing food and equipment that they may need, separating them into three piles for the three of them, then started shrinking things down one by one, using the version of the spell that was permanent. Fancy Pants and Fleur de Lis arrived shortly afterward, and his father started teaching them about the shrink spell while Starjumper got Summer Dawn to where she could start staging the spell. “I’m only teaching you one version of the spell, Summer for now, the charged version and the counterspell to end it early,” he told her. “That means it’ll wear off on its own after the duration you set expires. There are several variants to the spell, but you don’t need to know those for the trip. So, stop looking at what Dad is doing and concentrate on the spell I taught you,” he ordered. “He’s using a different version of the spell.”

“Sorry, I was just seeing how it was different from what you showed me,” she apologized.

“We don’t have time for tangents,” he reminded her.

She worked steadily through the day, each staged casting getting closer and closer to perfect. After an early dinner, Summer Dawn once again proved just how amazing she was by getting to where she could stage the spell correctly every time, which was a good three weeks faster than when he learned the spell. She’d only been working with the spell for one day, but she was very nearly ready to cast it. It had taken him a full month to gain competence with the basic version of the spell. Just as Moonshade arrived with Princess Luna, a large crate of armor pieces teleported in with them, he gave an approving nod. “You’ll be ready to start casting the spell tomorrow around lunch,” he told her, which made her smile. “You’ve got the basic mechanics of the spell down, we just need to work on the charged portion of the spell before you’re ready to start casting it.”

“Awesome! So we’ll be practicing being tiny tomorrow?”

“No,” he replied. “At least not in here.”

“Why not?”

“Rocky,” he answered. “I told you, when you’re that size, suddenly all those cute little animals you never think about suddenly become dangerous, and Rocky is no exception.”

“He’d never hurt me!”

“He won’t recognize you,” he answered strongly. “He wouldn’t hurt you if he knew who you were, but he won’t know. So we don’t shrink in the house without taking extravagant protections, like putting up a shield, or else we might end up having to hurt Rocky to keep him from killing us. I think if we ask the Princess nicely, she’ll allow us to practice being tiny in the palace, in a controlled location with plenty of protective oversight.”

“I’ll arrange it,” she nodded. “And it is wise that you experience spending time at that size before you begin your journey. It is quite different.”

“Thank you, your Highness,” Starjumper said. “We’re done with the spell for today, Summer. Let’s take a look at this armor.”

Moonshade and Nightsong took over at that point, teaching them how to put on thestral armor. It was surprisingly complicated, with a lot of buckles and straps that had to be just so, which caused quite a bit of magical resizing of not only the pieces of metal armor, but the straps that held it all together. They had to put a hole in Summer Dawn’s helmet for her horn, and Starjumper had to wait until after sunset to properly size the plate that would go over his back, because of his wings. He couldn’t size it properly without his wings out. It was also much heavier than he expected, though that weight was very well distributed and didn’t feel like it was encumbering him. After sizing everything as best he could—he’d have to resize the back plate again once he had his wings—he looked back at himself and took a few testing steps to the sides. “It’s not interfering with my range of motion,” he mused aloud.

“It would be terrible armor if it did,” Moonshade told him as she fussed a bit with the hoof protector on Summer Dawn’s right foreleg. It went completely over the hoof and ankle, an extending tapered spire rising all the way up past her ankle much like the decorative horseshoes the Princesses wore. He could see that the hoof protectors were very much a weapon if he struck out with metal-covered hooves. “Good armor protects without weighing you down or restricting your movement,” she continued. “It should be balanced so you feel its weight evenly spread across your entire body.”

“That’s how it feels to me,” Starjumper said as Summer Dawn brought down her foreleg and took a couple of steps back, prancing a bit. She looked pretty good in that armor. “We can wear our heat stones under the armor, that’ll keep them from getting lost. I think I could embed it into the inside of the armor, I’ll just have to move the padding around a little bit.”

“What’s a heat stone?”

“What’ll keep us from freezing our tails off when we’re flying across the sea,” he answered. “As long as it’s touching your fur or skin, it keeps you warm no matter how cold it is outside. We’re going to need them, particularly when we’re shrunk down so we can be carried. Without that heat stone, Moonshade, you’d die in minutes when exposed to the winter air when you’re shrunk.”

“Really? Why haven’t I ever heard of them?”

“Because they’re not easy to make,” Starjumper answered. “The spell that creates them is something I can barely cast. I’ll be exhausted after I make the six we need. And they’re also not permanent,” he added. “Well, they are, I mean they can be, but the permanent version of the spell is beyond my ability,” he admitted. “So we’ll be going with the one I can create and maintain on my own, that way we’re not trusting our lives on something that we can’t replace once we leave. I’ll be recharging them every day. They last about three days if the spell isn’t refreshed, so that gives me plenty of time to get them recharged.”

“Oh. Okay, that explains it,” she said with a nod.

“You can teach me the recharging spell?” Summer Dawn half stated, half asked.

“I was planning on doing it while we were on the move. It’ll give us something to do,” he answered her. “That way you can recharge the heat stones if I can’t, for some reason.”

His mother and Moonshade had them take off and put the armor back on several times, giving them practice, then had them do it by themselves to ensure they could manage without assistance. Sunset came not long after that, requiring the Princess to leave to raise the moon. Once his horn was gone and his wings were out, Princess Luna returned to the cave, and she and Comet Tail used magic to alter his backplate so he could use his wings without interference. “I think that’s right where it needs to be, your Highness,” Comet Tail said as both Moonshade and Nightsong inspected the armor on his back. He had his wings up and spread to give them clear sight of it. “Get up into a hover, son, see if the armor’s pinching or restricting your range of motion.”

He nodded and pulled himself up into the air, and he could feel the extra weight on him. “I don’t feel any rubbing along my wings,” he said. “But this feels a little weird. It’s the extra weight.”

“You’ll get used to it,” Moonshade told him. “Come down and we’ll put on the armor sections along the leading edges of your wings, and attach the wingblades. Those are about the most important pieces of a suit of thestral armor. You have to protect your wings, and the wingblades are your primary weapon in the air.”

That felt seriously weird. He’d never worn armor on his wings before, and the weight of it really messed with him. He raised his wings tentatively, felt the weight on the front of them, and saw that it was so well designed that it did not in any way interfere with his wings. He could even fold them with the armor on them, though it felt very odd to feel the weight pulling down on them when they were folded at his sides. He opened them again, very carefully since the wingblades were attached, then spread his wings out fully over his back. “Okay, that is messing with me,” he said. “It’s the strangest sensation.”

“And now you know why I want to take you out, so you can practice flying wearing the armor,” Moonshade told him. “The weight is going to change your flight characteristics, and it takes a little practice to get used to wearing the wing armor when you’re flying. But I don’t think it’ll bother you too much. You’re a Longwing, after all.”

“What difference does that make, Moonshade?” Summer Dawn asked.

“Those big wings makes his clan strong flyers,” she answered. “Gives them tons of speed, great acceleration and deceleration, and what’s most important in a skyfight, they can turn tighter than any other thestral. A Longwing thestral can out-turn a griffon, and can even turn with a hippogryph. If there’s one thing his clan is famous for back home, it’s their aerial skills. I’ve never seen a Longwing that wasn’t an amazing flyer, and it’s all thanks to those oversized sails they call wings.”

“Be jealous on your own time, Moonshade,” Nightsong said, opening her own oversized wings ostentatiously.

“Soon as you feel ready, let’s get out there. You need as much practice as you can get.”

“It’s gonna be cold out there.”

“A thestral soldier flies no matter what weather we face,” Moonshade told him bluntly. “And if you think it’s bad out there now, wait til we reach the Nightlands. It’s the middle of winter right now, and that means its blizzard season. We’ll be flying through some rough weather.”

“Which is why I’m even more glad we’ll have heat stones,” he grunted.

“Too much magic makes you soft,” she said, almost scathingly. “If you’re gonna wear that armor, you’re gonna uphold the honor it carries, a tradition of duty, honor, strength, discipline, and above all else, toughness. And a thestral soldier doesn’t complain that his hoovesies are cold.”

Summer Dawn couldn’t resist a giggle.

“Then let’s get out there and see who flies home to warm up first,” he said challengingly, looking down at the smaller mare…but not much smaller.

“That’s what I expect to hear from a thestral,” she said with a slight smile and a nod. “Let’s get you acclimated to flying in armor, and see if you’re tough enough to pass as a thestral soldier.”

They were out half the night, and he had to admit…Moonshade was almost a machine. She was a powerful flyer, but she also had immense stamina, able to fly at high speed wearing all that armor for hours on end. She was also as stoic as a stone, flying in the biting cold wearing that metal armor and not even so much as shivering once, as the cold in the metal seeped through the padding and started chilling his fur and skin under it, on top of the near-frostbite he felt on his exposed fur, particularly around his face. She put him through his paces, both testing his ability to fly distances wearing the armor, then testing his maneuverability, letting him get used to the weight and how it would change his turns. Starjumper was a very strong flyer, was quite skilled, and he showed that by adjusting quickly to the weight of the armor. As big and strong as he was, the weight wasn’t slowing him down, what it was doing was messing with him judging his turns. The armor didn’t interfere with his movement at all, so he was able to get his entire body involved in his flying, which was critical for tight turns and other aerobatic maneuvers.

As the moon reached its zenith in the sky above, he landed on a high cloud to wam up, its water frozen as ice crystals which made treading on it with his armored hooves sound like he was walking across frozen snow. He flexed his wings a few times to get the sting of the cold out of them, get the blood flowing through the membranes to warm them up, as Moonshade landed beside him. “Not bad,” she told him in her professional tone. “I’m surprised you knew half of those moves, and even more surprised you’re not laying there panting. You’ve got more endurance than I expected..”

“My life depends on my ability to fly,” he answered honestly. “So it shouldn’t be a surprise that I’m good at it.”

“I guess it would at that,” she agreed, looking up at him. “What’s it like? Being a unicorn half the time.”

“It’s not bad,” he replied. “I’m pretty good at magic, and I like it, so it keeps me busy. But I’d rather have these,” he said, opening his wings. “Magic doesn’t compare to this.”

“I’ll agree with you there,” she answered, stepping closer to him and looking down over the edge of the cloud. Canterlot was below them and some distance ahead, and its lights created quite a view. “There couldn’t be a worse fate for a flyer than to lose it. If I ever lost a wing…I may just throw myself off a cliff. I couldn’t live with being groundbound.”

“Are you really going to kill your mother?”

“Yes,” she replied immediately and with conviction. “She’s putting our entire race at risk. And even if we live through it, we’ll be slaves to this Sombra guy. Is he really that bad?” she asked, looking up at him.

“He broke the greatest rule of magic,” he answered her. “He devoted himself to dark magic.”

“What is dark magic?”

“Evil,” he replied. “There is no spell in dark magic that can ever have a beneficial result, and the magic itself feeds off of pain, misery, corruption, and despair. The more pain he inflicts, the stronger his magic becomes. He enslaved the ponies of the Crystal Empire, he inflicted unspeakable torment on them because he needed their pain to empower his magic, but the Royal Sisters defeated him before his magic became strong enough for him to start moving beyond the Crystal Empire. That’s the fate awaiting the thestrals if your mother succeeds in her plans,” he told her. “But he won’t just torture the thestrals, he’ll use them as his army to conquer everypony else. We are a race of soldiers, strong, skilled, and proud, and he couldn’t ask for anything better in his wildest dreams. With an army of thestrals at his back, he’ll roll over the entire Eastern Kingdoms in a matter of weeks, then cross the sea and invade Equestria. And with us bound to the magic of the Night Stone that he’ll have absorbed, we’ll never break free of him, not without destroying our entire race. We will be his slaves for eternity, Moonshade, an endless nightmare of pain and despair, and our only salvation will be destroying our entire race. We will become the servants of an acolyte of dark magic, forever bound to his will and screaming inside our souls at the horrors we’ve committed until the Gray Mare comes. That’s not a life I want, for me or my family.”

She was quiet a long moment, then looked up at him again. “Then that’s just even more reason to end this before it can begin,” she told him. “And I like our odds. If you can back up all those promises about magic, then we can get in there and steal the Night Stone right out from under my mother’s nose. And once we have it secured, I’m gonna go back and deal with her,” she said in a grim voice.

“Be smart about it,” he told her. “Don’t just fly in there and dive at her with your wingblades leading. That’ll just get you killed. Challenge her for the throne. She can’t deny your challenge, not without abdicating, and it puts you in charge and lets you step on the neck of anypony that might have liked your mother’s plan. Provided you can beat your mother in a fight.”

She gave a scornful laugh. “I can beat anypony in the Nightlands wingblade to wingblade,” she declared, almost pompously. “But I don’t want to be the Night Queen. I never have, and I never will. I am just a soldier,” she said with quiet dignity.

“The greatest ponies in history didn’t seek out glory. Glory sought out them,” he told her in a strong voice. “The very fact that you don’t want to be Night Queen is the reason why you’d be a good one.”

“That doesn’t make any sense.”

“If you think about it for a while, it will,” he said. “And I’m warmed up. Let’s get back to it. You need to teach me how to use these things,” he said, opening his wings and pointing at one of the wingblades with his hoof.

“That would take years. But we don’t have years, so I’ll teach you some very basic moves and let you rely on your flying skills to make up for your lack of training,” she answered. “You’re a good flyer, Starjumper, well trained and with a lot of natural talent. You’re as good as a thestral soldier.”

“Thank you,” he said modestly.

As they got back to work, he had to take a moment and reflect on Moonshade. She wasn’t exactly what he expected. Oh, there was the shadow of the arrogance he expected, but she was much more grounded than he expected, and her devotion to the Nightlands was evident in the way she spoke. She had been loyal to her mother as the Night Queen, but her true allegiance lay with the Nightlands, not her family. She was a true patriot, and she understood the subtle fact that one could commit treason against a queen yet still be a patriot to one’s country. Her mother had held her undying loyalty as both her mother and the Night Queen until the minute she realized that her mother was a threat to the country she loved, a fact that he suspected she understood before she came to Equestria to kill him. She had held to her loyalty out of love for her mother, even when she could see what was going on and disagreed with it. That conflict had become visible when she attacked Starjumper, when she was confronted with the fact that her mother wasn’t acting in the best interests of the kingdom she ruled. She’d had to make a soul-rending choice between her love for her mother and her loyalty to her kingdom, and he could empathize with the pain that must have caused her.

And the fact that she was here with him now, teaching him how to use wingblades in flight, gave him tremendous respect for her.

He’d been a bit hesitant of the idea of Moonshade going with him, uncertain that he could trust her, but not now. She was no threat to him, and her interests were squarely in protecting the land she loved and the thestrals that occupied it.

Moonshade was an ally. And he had the feeling that in time, she might even become a friend.

From the Ashes

It was a cold, dark night with the clouds covering the half-full moon, but it was more than enough light to see the ashes of his life.

Shivering his wings in the dark pre-dawn, just moments before Princess Celestia would raise the sun, Starjumper Astra walked slowly towards the tumbled ruins of the small tower that had been his home while he was here. He was in his armor, feeling a bit weary after spending literally the entire night flying with Moonshade to get used to wearing it while on the wing, and she’d gone on to the palace to get some sleep, which allowed him to come down here and see the aftermath for himself. There was still heat around the ash-choked pile, the heat of the embers buried under the rock and insulated from the cold winter air, warming the stones to where the snow had been melted well away from the rubble. It was that heat that was the reason why they hadn’t yet started to clear the rubble, because moving the stones would supply air to those heated embers and cause the fire to reignite. They would have to douse the pile with a large amount of water to cool it off. No doubt the Princess had arranged it with the pegasi from the weather department to park a small storm cloud directly over the rubble and have it rain on the debris to drown the embers. But until they got that arranged, the pile remained.

Ashes.

He knew it would happen. He’d known all his life just what would happen if his secret ever got out, but to see it in such stark terms, it hit him like a hammer. That debris had been his life. Almost everything he owned had been in there, all his books, the dozens of journals he’d kept over the years, writing down the events of his life and the way he saw it as a Lykan, and all the small things that made a collection of rooms a home, they were all gone.

Just like that.

He’d held out a feeble hope that maybe something might have survived, but seeing the pile of rubble, feeling the heat emanating from it, he knew that had been a foal’s dream. Anything not crushed by the weight of the stone had been burned by the fire, or blackened and charred by the smoldering embers. There hadn’t been very much in there. He’d come with just two saddlebags of personal effects, each barely half full. But in a way, the fact that he had so little made losing it that much more crushing. What little he had was precious to him, and it had been taken away by the blind hatred and cruelty of ponies that had only seen what they wanted to see.

Yes, he had a new place to live, a place that he rather liked. Yes, it was already full of furniture and books and a few little knick-knacks that made it feel more like a home than a temporary abode. But it was the principle of the matter. The ponies of Canterlot had had no right to destroy everything he owned. They had no right to treat him the way he’d been treated, and seeing everything he owned in ruins made him far angrier than he expected to be.

Princess Celestia said that somepony set the fire on purpose, and that when the found out who it was, the punishment would be quite harsh. But standing there, seeing the wafts of smoke rise up from the spaces between the tumbled-down, blackened stones, he wasn’t sure if her merciful demeanor would allow a punishment deserving of the crime.

This was the first time he’d been out by himself since waking up. Summer Dawn, her parents, and his parents had done a good job keeping him constant company yesterday, and he realized as he stood there that they’d been keeping him inside his house. They’d kept him company every moment since waking up, and after sunset, he’d gone out last night with Moonshade so he could acclimate to flying in armor. Moonshade had made sure to keep him well away from Canterlot, almost as if they were all working together to keep him from seeing this, sheltering him.

He couldn’t blame them that much. His family knew about his temper, and the Princess had said that the absolute last thing he could do right now is lose it. The Night Stone could affect him if he lost control of his emotions, connecting to him in a moment of anger. And since it was currently under attack by Moonshade’s mother, all of its pain would be pushed onto him…and the last time that happened, it had required Princess Luna to take drastic measures to heal his mind.

He wasn’t afraid of the Night Stone. Princess Celestia had done a good job explaining what happened in a way that he wasn’t afraid that it would do him intentional harm. But it could do him accidental harm, so he had to take steps to make sure that didn’t happen. And the biggest of them was making sure he kept in control of his emotions.

Usually, that wasn’t much of a problem. Living with his condition had instilled into him a great deal of discipline, keeping both his emotions and his temper in check. But it was a little different now that there was a consequence for losing his temper…and he had a temper. He was thestral enough to have an absolutely vile temper, it was just that he was very, very good at keeping it under control. For ponies like him and his mother, when they lost their tempers, it was a sight nearly as terrifying as it was momentous.

Actually, that was something of a general thestral trait. Most thestrals had nasty tempers, and it was the ability to control that temper that varied from thestral to thestral. Some could be set off by a single unkind word, where Starjumper, his mother, and his siblings were the other end of that spectrum, requiring considerable provocation to make them lose their cool. But whether a thestral’s temper was long or short, when they were set off…watch out. No matter how kind or gentle or nice a thestral was, when they lost their temper, they were as savage as they were dangerous.

And it required him to clamp down on his temper to look at what was left of his life. It made him feel both vulnerable and helpless to see it, to know that it had been so easy for some pony to come along and destroy everything he owned, and that they had walked away without getting caught. They may have been able to sneak away, or they might have just walked down the steps and marched away in full view of anypony that was out and about, and those ponies weren’t talking. That was what really made him mad, that ponies may have seen who started the fire, but weren’t going to say anything because they saw nothing wrong with what he or she did.

One thing was for sure…he wasn’t going to let this go. He had two days before Summer Dawn was ready for the journey, so that gave him two days to hunt down whichever pony had burned his house down. And if he managed to find out who did it before he left…he very well may dispense his own justice.

That was why he was here. Advancing up to the edge of the debris pile, opening and lowering his wings in an arched canopy over the ground to still the air under them, an old thestral trick, Starjumper walked around to the sidewalk leading up to it, then he lowered his muzzle and brought his nose down close to the paved stones. Whoever burned his house down had to be close to it to do it, and there was a good chance that their scent might be detectable. It was very difficult to smell anything past the smoke and ash, the smell of charred wood and scorched stone, which forced him out away from the ruins. And that ruined the idea. When he got to where he could smell anything other than the remains of the fire, there were far too many scents on the stones for him to isolate a potential suspect. The Royal Guard and the firefighting ponies had been all over the place, and their many scents crisscrossed the stones. All of them were the same age, laid down about the time of the fire, making it impossible for him to isolate one that seemed the most suspicious.

Well, it was worth investigation. Few ponies knew about the sense of smell possessed by thestrals, had no idea that wherever they went, they left behind a scent trail that a thestral could follow, which made it very easy for thestrals to use scents against them.

He decided to range out into the grass just to be thorough, and found more of the same. Dozens of scents all jumbled together, crossing over one another, which concealed the cuplrit’s identity. He moved out onto the churned snow, far enough away that the heat of the debris hadn’t melted it, and there were even more scents out there, some of them much younger…students. The students must have gathered to gawk at the fire. He moved back onto the grass, picking through the many scents to isolate them one by one, and then memorizing them. If he couldn’t pick out the arsonist’s scent from the many left behind, he’d memorize all of them and see about finding the culprit through the process of elimination. If he could disqualify all the other scents present, then the pony left behind was in high likelihood the suspect.

That task was going to be fairly daunting, given the sheer number of ponies he was smelling, but he really couldn’t think of anything else to do. He didn’t know a magic spell that would help him find the culprit, and since his memory of the event had been completely purged from him, he had absolutely nothing to go on. All he had was what other ponies told him, and they just didn’t pay attention to things the way he did. The critical little hint that he would notice, they would not, so they wouldn’t tell him about it.

The only real hint he had to go on, as far as a pony with a motive was concerned, was that Nova had been here. It was Nova’s taunt that made Starjumper lose his temper, he’d been told, and there was no real reason that Nova should have been close enough to his apartment to be here to watch it burn unless he knew it was going to burn beforehoof. North Star’s hatred of him meant that he and his family were the only ones with demonstrated motive to do something like this, since they were the only ones in Canterlot that had a documented history of taking real actions against Starjumper.

A pony that would hire a private investigator to dig up something to get him thrown out of school would have the motive to do something like burn down his house.

No doubt, North Star knew that he was the primary suspect, and that would cause him to cover his hoofprints. If he did it, then he hired somepony to do it for him…and no doubt that pony was no longer in Canterlot.

That had possibilities. North Star was the primary suspect, and it might be worth his while to do a little digging, in ways that the proper and lawful Royal Guard and the Princess might not. North Star only cared about the rules when they worked in his favor…well, Starjumper was cut from the same cloth.

But, that project would have to wait. He noticed the sudden increase in light in the cloudy sky, and knew that the sun was about to be raised. Summer Dawn would be awake soon, and he needed to get her to where she could cast the spell so she could begin practicing its basic version while he got some sleep. His father would be there to keep an eye on her, he knew the spell even better than Starjumper did. His parents were going to stay in Canterlot until they came back from the Nightlands, so Comet Tail could help out by helping with Summer Dawn while he was sleeping.

He could use the sleep. Moonshade had kept him out all night, making sure he could fly long distances wearing the armor, and give him extended time to get used to wearing it.

He was almost surprised when the sun rose above the horizon behind the mountain, as the sunlight seemed to pierce the rock and his armor and flesh and go straight into his soul. He gave a gasp and quickly spread his wings before they were affected, getting them out away from his sides, and just barely managed to get them in place before the pain hit him as they seared to ash without flame, then crumbled away. He gritted his teeth and raised his head even as his horn tore through the flesh of his forehead and grew with magical speed, turning on itself to form the telltale spiral pattern, the horn almost perfectly extending through the hole in the helmet he was wearing, which now had blood soaking the inside padding as ash mixed with the blood that oozed from the charred pits behind his shoulders that had once held his wings.

He took a cleansing breath and opened his eyes as the last of the pain ebbed, as his shoulders healed and the flesh sealed around his horn. He took a very brief moment to adjust to the change in his senses, the dulling of them more than anything as he lost his enhanced senses of hearing and smell, and the colors only visible to thestrals were hidden from him once again, but also the awakening of a new sense, his sense of magic. That sense told him nothing about what had happened here, outside of getting a very faint sense of magic buried in the rubble…the clock. The clock was destroyed, but the magic that made it work still lingered in the pieces of it that hadn’t been burned or melted by the fire. He’d know that magic anywhere, he’d carried it with him most of his life. It had ruled over him more powerfully than any master had ruled over a slave, and it still felt very strange to him to know that he didn’t need it anymore. The reason for him to carry it was gone, since everypony knew his secret.

It was all that was left. His life, burned away like his wings. There was nothing left but ashes.

Ashes.

He had to fight back a surge of anger and indignation, pointedly turning his armored rump towards the ruined tower, putting it behind him. The metal armor clanked a tiny bit as he walked away, his hooves stepping from grass to snow as the air chilled when he moved away from the lingering heat of the fire-scorched stones, still almost too warm to touch after nearly two days. At least nopony was going to burn down his new home…if they could find it. If they could get to it if they knew where it was. It was a reflection of himself, hidden in plain sight, hidden behind a wall that nopony would think was anything unusual. He had led a very strictly regimented life meant to project an image, the image of a unicorn so absorbed in his studies that he missed the marching of the world around him, hiding the truth of who and what he was. Hiding his skill, hiding his true power, hiding who he was so those that had ill will towards him would underestimate him.

But there would be no return to those old ways. He had no intention of staying in Canterlot now, not after this, but he would come back to see Summer Dawn. And when he was here, he would act more like the thestral he was. Proud, strong, and if anypony so much as looked at him the wrong way, he’d pound that pony into the floor. And all the justification he needed to act that way lay in the smoldering ruins behind him.

In midstride, Starjumper vanished in a circular burst of golden magic, and he reappeared in his new home, in the large open area between where he had his kitchen and his sitting couch—or more to the point, where his mother had put it after she rearranged the furniture. Nopony was here yet, leaving the large circular room quiet…and a bit empty. Well, not entirely empty. Rocky dropped from his perch at the top of the dome and flew around him a few times, then landed on his back, his claws gripping the armor, and gave a few deeper pitched, chirping squeaks. He indulged his roommate by teleporting a couple of gems from the vault into midair in front of him, then caught them in his magic and floated them over his shoulder to put them in reach of the rock bat. The crunching of gems reminded him that he hadn’t eaten all night, and that realization made him hungry enough to turn around and open the pantry door with his magic, pulling out the ingredients to make hash brown potatoes and blackcap flapjacks, made from a nutty-flavored mushroom that grew in both Equestria and the Nightlands. Rocky rode on his back as he started laying things out, then heard the rock bat’s claws scrape across the metal of his armor.

“I know, I’ll take it off once I get the batter mixed,” he told the bat absently. “I almost forgot I had it on. It’s not that bad once you get used to it. At least in here, where it’s warm. This stuff’s not comfortable at all when the winter cold seeps into it.” He was quiet a moment. “That reminds me, I need to start on the heat stones,” he added to himself. He gave a long yawn. “At least after I get some sleep.”

He had the batter half mixed when the stone door to his abode opened, and the fact that it did meant that it was a pony that knew the concealed door was there and knew how it worked. The door itself was his main defense against intruders, since it was built to look like the rock wall, blended into it perfectly, and had no visible latch or knob. A pony had to know where the secret lever was that unlocked it to get in. He looked back to see Princess Celestia stepping inside, having to duck her head down considerably to get in, and he set his breakfast aside and hurried up to her. He gave a bow as she closed the door behind her, pushing it closed with her back leg rather than magic. “Your Highness, I didn’t know you were coming,” he said apologetically.

“Moonshade just reported to us, and I thought that with you being out all night, that you might be a bit tired today,” she smiled down at him. “So I took it upon myself to make something for you.” She turned her head slightly, and six large crystals appeared in a circular burst of golden magic. He recognized them immediately, they were heat stones. “You mentioned that you had yet to make them, and I thought it might speed things along. Besides, I thought you might like one for your armor if you go out to train again tonight,” she smiled.

“I would very much, thank you, your Highness,” he said with honest gratitude, taking control of them with his magic and bringing them close. They were permanent heat stones, something he couldn’t make himself. That meant that he wouldn’t have to constantly recharge them. “No, Rocky, these aren’t food,” he warned as the bat leaned over his shoulder, eying one of the crystals intently. “Odds are, it would give you a massive stomach ache if you did eat it.”

The rock bat took off from his back and circled higher and higher, then flipped up his legs, grabbed his perch, then settled in hanging inverted off of it, wrapping his wings around himself.

“I have everything prepared for your training with Summer Dawn, Starjumper,” she continued, walking past him and towards his kitchen area, causing him to follow along. “I have a room prepared for her to practice interacting with unshrunk objects, things I think you might encounter on your journey. I had some rocks brought in to simulate needing to walk across the kind of terrain you’ll encounter in the Nightlands, and a created a small pool of water so you can demonstrate the dangers of it. And there is some furniture there for her to learn to deal with as well. My, I haven’t smelled that in ages. Is that blackcap mushroom I smell?”

“Yes ma’am,” he replied, impressed. “I didn’t know ponies ate it.”

“Usually no, but I’ve had the occasion to enjoy thestral fare,” she answered. “And I was quite taken with blackcap bread.”

“I’m making flapjacks, so it’s a slightly different recipe. But, if you want some really good blackcap bread, my mother can make it for you.”

“I’ll make a point to ask her about it,” she replied.

The chiming sound of teleportation magic interrupted them, and Starjumper turned in time to see the last vestiges of pink magic fading from the air. Summer Dawn was standing in an open area by the wall near his writing table, a safe place to appear in the room. “I’m sorry I’m late—your Highness,” she said suddenly, bowing on her front legs.

“Good morning, Summer Dawn,” the Princess answered. “Feeling well today?”

“Yes ma’am, just eager to get started,” she replied. “Just running a little late. Why did you put the armor back on, Star?”

“I never took it off,” he answered. “We just finished before sunrise.”

“You were out all night?”

He nodded, a bit surprised when the Princess took up a mixing spoon with her magic and picked up the bowl holding the batter, then started mixing it. “Moonshade said I needed as much time as possible to get used to wearing this while flying. That and she wanted to make sure I was strong enough to still be able to fly after wearing it all night. I found that a bit insulting,” he snorted, which made Summer Dawn giggle a little.

“You didn’t get any sleep at all?”

“No, but I’ll be alright,” he answered. “I plan to take a nap once you’re to where you can practice casting the spell. I’ll have Dad answer any questions you may have while I take a nap, he knows the spell even better than I do. He taught it to me, after all. Then after I wake up, we’ll go to the palace and let you practice moving around shrunk.”

“That’s what I came to tell you, Summer Dawn,” the Princess injected. “Luna explained what you have planned, and I have everything arranged. I have a room prepared filled with things we think you may encounter on your journey, to allow you to get experience interacting with them in a shrunken state. That, and I think I’d like to see how far along you are in your training. And help with breakfast,” she added with a gentle smile, lifting the bowl a bit with her magic. “I feel that if I help make it, Starjumper won’t be too cross with me if I steal a pancake or two. I haven’t had blackcap pancakes before, and they sound quite delicious.”

“What is blackcap?” Summer Dawn asked.

“It’s a kind of mushroom, fairly common in both Equestria and the Nightlands,” he answered. “You saw some, they were those large black mushrooms I picked that were close to the pool, remember? I kept them to eat. Thestrals use blackcaps instead of flour because wheat is so expensive there, they mash it into a pulp and use it that way. They make breads, pastries, and cakes out of it, you know, anything a pony can make out of flour.”

“Blackcap bread is very good,” the Princess told her. “It has a rich, nutty flavor that I very much enjoy. And I’d never considered using it to make pancakes. But now that I have, I’m quite looking forward to trying it.”

“I’m fairly sure I have enough for two, your Highness.”

“Three,” Summer Dawn corrected. “Now I wanna try it. It sounds good.”

It felt…well, weird cooking with the Princess right there, and it would have felt weirder if she just sat at the table waiting, because that would have made him feel very nervous as she watched him cook for her. She instead helped out, even had Starjumper teach her the recipe, which made her seem far less aloof and regal and more like a real pony. Starjumper had the chance to take off the armor while the Princess minded the flapjacks in the pan, which made him feel surprisingly better. He hadn’t noticed the weight of the armor after wearing it so long until he took it off. By the time they were setting the plates on the table, the door opened once again, and both his parents and Summer Dawn’s parents filed in, one at a time because of the size of the door. “I see you beat me to it, ducky,” his mother noted lightly as she strode over, then bowed fluidly to the Princess. “I was going to make you a nice breakfast.”

“I didn’t eat all night, I think Moonshade was seeing how long I could go without a meal,” he grunted, which made Summer Dawn giggle a little.

“She’s a tough one, I’ve noticed,” Fleur de Lis observed.

“She’s a thestral soldier, ducky, you have no idea how tough she is,” Nightsong answered. “She can fly two days straight wearing armor through a blizzard with no sleep, food, or water, and when she reaches her destination, she’ll go straight into battle without so much as dropping her packs.”

“She’s more of a stallion than me,” Starjumper grunted, which made most of the room burst out laughing.

Their parents let them eat, then they got to work. Starjumper felt a whole lot of self conscious working with Summer Dawn with the Princess looking on from discrete distance, engaging Summer Dawn’s parents in conversation but very much paying attention to what Starjumper and Summer Dawn were doing. Fortunately, Summer Dawn didn’t make him look incompetent, picking up where they left off and proving that she’d done a little work of her own last night, probably practicing the spell on her own, against his orders. It barely took two hours for her to work out how the parts of the spell that could change affected the casting, and by lunch, she was ready to cast the spell.

When it came to this spell, the first casting was never done to one’s self. He set one of the chairs form his table in front of her as she sat on her cushion, then took a couple of steps back. “Alright, Summer, time to give this a try. What are the parameters?”

“Shrink it to half its size, charge it to last two minutes,” she answered, staring intently at the chair.

“Correct. Are you ready?”

“Ready.”

“Then do it,” he ordered.

She bit her lip a little bit as her horn flared with pink magic, then she raised her head deliberately as she cast the spell. An aura of pink magic surrounded the chair, and then it visibly began to get smaller. Its legs scraped across the floor as it shrunk, and he gave a nod when it reduced to half its size and then stopped. She’d gotten that part of the matrix correct. “What do you never do?”

“Cast the spell on an object that’s already shrunk, unless I’m reversing the spell,” she answered, then she gave a laugh. “You told Frostmane not to do that when you shrunk Nova.”

“Not to a living thing,” he told her. “Reversing a charged shrink spell on a living thing makes the subject pass out, and I wasn’t about to do that. But reversing the spell on an inanimate object is fine.”

“Ah, okay.”

“Is the chair lighter?”

“Yes, but I can make it not change its weight if I cast the spell the right way.”

“Correct. Is the chair easier to break?”

“Yes, but if I don’t change its weight, then I don’t change its strength either.”

“Correct,” he nodded, then noticed that the spell was wearing off. In seconds, the chair returned to its normal size. She hadn’t charged it enough to last two minutes. “You got everything right but the duration,” he told her. “But practice can fix that.”

“I was sure I charged it enough,” she fretted.

“Like I said, practice will fix that,” Starjumper told her, then he gave a yawn. “And I think Dad can help you with that part. I need to take a nap.”

“You do look tired,” she said, looking at him.

“I’m sure that Comet Tail has other things to do,” Princess Celestia spoke up. “If you don’t mind, young Summer Dawn, I’d be happy to help you with your practice.”

“Really?” she said with a gasp.

“It’s not a bother, young one. Starjumper already taught you the spell. I’ll just be helping you with your charging,” she smiled.

“Then I believe I’m leaving you in the most capable hooves in Canterlot, Summer,” Starjumper said evenly.

He retreated to the top of the dome and cast a zone of silence and a spell of darkness so they wouldn’t bother him, then “laid down” on the stone, making sure to press just about every part of him that could dangle against the stone so he could cling to it. Everything, from his belly to his tail to his cheek and muzzle, was clinging to the stone so nothing would hang. The stone was cool against his cheek, almost inviting, and it barely took a moment for the warm darkness lulled him to sleep.

The room the Princess prepared wasn’t as much a room as it was a gallery.

It was on the third floor of the palace, the gallery directly over the grand ballroom, a very large chamber meant for storage whose floor was raised in an arch across the middle, the top of the grand arched ceiling of the ballroom beneath it. One side of the large chamber had been cleared out of all its stored goods and converted into three separate areas meant to give Summer Dawn and Moonshade experience dealing with things they may encounter on the journey. One area held furniture and other things that they might find in a dwelling or building, one area had been littered with dirt, rock, and stones to simulate the rocky, mountainous terrain of the Nightlands, complete with a small pool of water, and the third area wasn’t so much an area as the air above it, as several small clouds had been brought into the room and set near the ceiling, which would give Summer Dawn experience moving around on clouds both shrunk and unshrunk. The Princess had supplied her with another magical trinket, a small pegasus feather pinned into her hair that conveyed upon her the ability to walk on clouds like a pegasus. So long as the feather remained in contact with her coat or mane, it would give her its magic.

“I had no idea something this cool was inside the palace,” Summer Dawn said eagerly as they looked around. All three of them were wearing armor, so he and Summer Dawn could further adjust to it, and the heat stones that the Princess gave them were affixed into torcs they were wearing under it. The chestplates pushed the heat stone against their fur, which made sure that they stayed in contact with it and stayed warm.

“It took my guards a little doing to set it up,” Princess Celestia said as she walked in behind them, towering over them when she stepped up between him and Moonshade. “The things in here are things you may encounter on your journey while shrunk, my young ones. This will give you a chance to learn how to deal with them as obstacles. Mainly you, my young unicorn,” she said, looking at Summer Dawn. “Moonshade will have a very easy time of it because she can fly, and Starjumper can walk up and down things during the daytime. But you will have to learn how to manage dealing with things that are much too large for you to easily navigate.”

“This is about learning how to not use magic as much as you can, Summer,” Starjumper added. “The temptation to just levitate yourself or teleport will be strong, but remember that you tire very quickly when using magic while shrunk.”

“This looks like it might actually be fun,” she said in an animated voice.

“Foals,” Starjumper sighed.

“That makes you an infant, Star, I’m older than you,” she winked in reply.

“Will it be different for me to fly?” Moonshade asked.

“A little,” Starjumper answered. “The air will feel much thicker, and from your perspective, you’ll be flying in high winds most of the time.”

“I can work with that,” she said professionally.

“I’ll leave you to your practice, my friends,” the Princess said. “Either of the unicorn guards that will stand post by the door will be able to reverse the spell for you at any time.”

“But I thought that you didn’t cast it on a pony.”

“The charged version, my young one. Starjumper will be using the permanent version. You will remain shrunk until Starjumper or one of the guards reverses the spell.”

“Just so,” Starjumper nodded. “We have no idea how long we’re going to be here, so I’ll use the version that we can reverse whenever.”

“Oh, okay.”

“Well, that sounds a bit unnerving,” Moonshade grunted.

“The guards will be able to reverse it at any time, Moonshade. You can get their attention with that,” the Princess assured her, pointing at the small piece of smooth stone, like a large tile, directly across from the door. “The stone is enchanted so that if you stand upon it, it will give a magical sound that will alert the guards. When you are ready to return to your normal size, just stand on the stone and the guards will cast the spell. Remember, my dear thestral, they cannot understand you if you try to speak to them while shrunk.”

“Oh yeah, that’s right,” she murmured.

“I have matters to attend, my young ones. Be careful, but have fun,” she smiled, then she turned and strolled regally out of the room, the door closing behind her.

“Ready?” Starjumper asked.

“Let’s do this,” Moonshade said, stepping closer.

“Ready!” Summer Dawn answered.

“This is gonna feel a little weird,” he warned. “And the first few times you shrink using the spell, you’ll be just a tiny bit dizzy after you’re shrunk, but that passes quickly. So don’t move too much until you feel steady.” His horn blazed with golden light, and then he built the spell and released it with practiced skill. The world suddenly started growing, expanding, from his point of view, the guards behind them and the furniture in front of them both growing larger and larger and seeming to get further and further away. He shrunk them all the way down to the size of insects, and when the spell ended, he took a deep breath of air that seemed thicker to his lungs and turned to look at Summer Dawn and Moonshade. Both of them looked a little woozy.

“Go ahead and get the laughter out of the way,” he said in a light manner, his voice so high pitched that no pony could possibly make that sound at full size. They both gave him a shocked look, then Summer Dawn did just that, broke into sudden laughter. “Trust me, you’ll sound just as weird to us, Summer.”

“You sound—I sound like an angry chipmunk!” she said, then laughed again.

“The only reason you can hear this is because your ears shrunk along with your vocal chords,” he said as Moonshade gave a slight smile. “This is why the guards can’t understand us. If they hear anything at all, it’ll be faint squeaky chittering. Feel up to moving, Moonshade?”

“I’m good,” she replied. “I’m gonna go ahead and take off, get used to flying at this size.”

“Just be careful at first,” he said with a nod. “Summer, go ahead and use magic. Get an idea of what it’s like, and how fast you tire.”

“Okay,” she nodded as Moonshade spread her wings and took off.

Since he had lots of practice operating at that size, Starjumper more or less just parked himself on top of a table and let the other two adjust to the differences. And it did take practice, as Moonshade learned that flying when one was the size of a grasshopper introduced an entirely different set of flight mechanics, and Summer Dawn learned that magic was much, much harder to use at that size because of how quickly it tired her. But, it also showed off her incredible power, because she managed to cast far more magic then he would have been able to manage. When shrunk, Starjumper could manage six or seven spells before he was exhausted, or only one if it was a very strong spell, but she managed to cast well over two dozen spells before the effort started getting to her.

But she wasn’t here to use magic, she was here to learn how to deal with a giant world and not use magic as much as possible. He watched as she climbed up and down large rocks, learning quickly that she was much stronger shrunk than she was at full size and could jump very long distances—at least on that small scale—and also learned that she could fall a very long distance without injuring herself, due to the air resistance and pressure on their tiny bodies. It was the same reason that insects could fall long distances and not be hurt, though their exoskeletons helped a great deal with that.

Moonshade landed beside him after flying a while and they watched Summer Dawn climb up a large rock, folding back her wings and looking down at her. “She’s like a little pup, isn’t she?” she asked bluntly, speaking Thestralla.

“In some ways. I find it charming,” he replied in kind. “She has a very innocent view of the world, Moonshade, but it’s not an innocence based on ignorance. It’s an innocence based on her desire to see the good in everything. That, and her enthusiasm and adventurous spirit, it makes her seem more like a foal than a mare sometimes, but never doubt that that mare is smart, or observant, or not capable. Once she learns what she needs to know, I’ll put my life in her hooves without hesitation, Moonshade. She’s certainly nothing like any other unicorn in this stuffy town,” he noted, unable to help smiling a little as they watched her clamber up the last slope of the rock, then she gave a little hop of elation and stood proudly on top of her little mountain, surveying her kingdom.

She gave him a long look, then looked back down again. “So, that explains it.”

“Explains what?”

“Why you’re doing this,” she answered. “You have no reason to help us, not after everything the thestrals have done to you. I fully expected you to laugh in the Princess’ face and celebrate when the Nightlands burns.”

“I’m not doing this for the thestrals. I’m doing this for Equestria,” he stressed. “If we let Sombra take the Nightlands, by the time he comes across the eastern sea and invades Equestria, he might be too powerful to stop. You’re right, I have no love for the thestrals. I care about my mother and my family, and that’s it. The rest of you can rot in Tarterus for all I care. I’m doing this because I owe Princess Celestia my life, and the Princess asked me to do this. That’s the only reason I need.”

“Oh, there’s another reason,” she said sagely, giving him a sly look.

“You believe whatever you want to believe, Moonshade,” he said shortly.

“While we’re in a place where nopony can understand us, I thought we might talk about your apartment,” she said. “I think I may know who burned it down, or at least who gave the order.”

“How would you know that?”

“Because the arrogant snot gave me the info that got Summer Dawn tangled up in things,” she answered. “He told me about her, and her connection to you. And he wanted me to kill you.”

He gave her a long look.

“It’s no stretch that if he tried to arrange to have you murdered, it wouldn’t be much further for him to burn down your house,” she continued.

“North Star,” he growled savagely.

She nodded. “A few days before we had our little dance,” she said lightly, “he came to the palace and told me about Summer Dawn, that she would know where you are, and that she was the only thing that would draw you out of hiding, that she was the only thing in Canterlot you would fight to protect…and it turned out he was right. All he wanted out of it was for me to kill you. It seems that he finds the fact that you’re only half unicorn to mean that you’re a stain on the unicorn race,” she said with dark amusement. “I’ve seen hatred, Starjumper, but his is that special kind of hatred that burns like a bonfire on a clear winter night.”

“I thought he might be capable of it,” Starjumper said darkly. “But proving it’s going to be another matter.”

“What’s there to prove?” Moonshade shrugged her shoulders, causing her wings to bob. “He wants to kill you, Starjumper. Any other thestral would take him down just for that alone.”

“This isn’t the Nightlands,” he told her. “I can’t just challenge him to batara and kill him, and if I were to act now, the Princess would know it was me, and I’d be the one to get in trouble. They don’t do things like that here.”

“And they think this realm represents justice,” she snorted.

“Did you tell the Princess what you know?”

“They already know, I told them about North Star after our fight, but before your apartment burned. But I haven't told them I think he did it, at least not yet. I wanted to talk to you first. Give you the chance to deal with it the thestral way,” she answered. “It’s the proper thing to do.”

“Well, thank you for your consideration, but it’s better if you tell the Princess. She has resources we don’t, she may be able to find out the truth.”

They stayed in the room long enough for Starjumper to change—him being tiny in no way altered that process—and he spent the hour or so they were there after sunset flying around the room, until he felt Summer Dawn had enough experience being tiny to have practical experience with the unique dangers it presented and keep herself safe during the journey. After gathering them up, they stepped onto the plate, and moments later, one of the guards returned them to their full size. “I am so hungry!” Summer Dawn declared as soon as they were normal size again. “And I’ll be very happy to get out of this armor!”

“When are we leaving, now that we got this done?” Moonshade asked.

“The day after tomorrow,” Starjumper answered. “Summer almost has the shrink spell learned. One more day of practice with the variants and she’ll be ready to go. So, let’s plan to leave the morning after. You feel ready for the flying?”

“Do you?” she challenged in reply.

“I’ll do my share,” he told her.

“I’ll be ready, I promise,” Summer Dawn declared. “You ready for me to take you home, Star?” she asked eagerly.

“You two go ahead. I’ll be over around midnight,” Moonshade told them. “Be ready for wingblade practice. You need as much practice as you can get before we leave.”

“Alright,” he replied with a nod. “That’ll give me time to get a meal and a little rest.”

“Same,” she replied starting towards the door as one of the guards opened it for her.

“Ready?” Summer Dawn asked.

“Ready,” he answered. She wasted no time, her horn blazed with pink magical energy, and they were teleported from the palace to his cave home. She landed them in the open area behind the couch, and in a true testament to how much she had learned, how far she had come, she had done it without any resistance at all. Her teleport was smooth, swift, and flawless. The single room abode was empty, and after they took off the armor, Summer Dawn rushed towards the kitchen area.

“I am starving,” she complained, opening the cold storage pantry door with her magic before she was anywhere near it. “Please please tell me you have some leftovers.”

“I should, but if you’re that hungry, why don’t you go raid your own kitchen?” he challenged. “You have way more food than I do.”

“I’d rather eat here,” she said. “I have a few questions about the spell, we can talk about it while we eat.”

That answer seemed…off, at least for her. She already knew enough to cast the spell, so there was no need to talk more about it. And the timbre of her voice…she was being, being deceptive. And that was almost anathema for her. She was playfully deceitful, but never about anything important. “And what’s the real reason you’re staying?” he pressed.

She glanced at him, blushing slightly through the fur on her cheeks. “While you were sleeping, I talked with the Princess about the Night Stone. I wanted to talk to you about it,” she answered. “I’m worried, Star.”

He gave her a look as he walked towards the kitchen area, as she pulled a large bowl out of the pantry holding vegetable soup, magically sealed to keep it fresh using a spell Starjumper had learned from his father. They used it in the shop to sell foodstuffs, keeping it magically preserved until the container was opened. Her horn flared with magic once she set it on a stone slab on the counter, and the soup began to simmer and bubble as she magically heated it. “Worried about what?”

She looked up at him. “You don’t remember it, but I do,” she told him. “When the Night Stone took you over, it…it hurt you. The magic was too much for you. You always tell me that you’re not as strong as you look, and I never really believed you. You’re always so amazing with magic, I thought—I mean, you can do almost anything. I never believed that you’d have…have limits. Then I saw what the Night Stone did to you,” she said, her eyes on the soup. “I’m worried about you, Star. If you touch the Night Stone, I’m afraid of what it might do to you.”

“From what the Princess told me, it won’t do anything to me,” he told her. “If I’m touching the Night Stone, that means we’ve taken it from the Night Queen, and it won’t be under attack anymore. That’s what made it do whatever it did that’s making you nervous. I’m sure that as long as it’s safe, then I’ll be safe too.”

“But we don’t know that,” she said, looking up at him. To his surprise, her eyes are shimmering, full of emotion, looking up at him in a way she never had before. “You have to promise me, Star, that you won’t touch the Night Stone unless you absolutely have to. If it’ll let you touch it, it’ll let you levitate it. Levitate it, teleport it, but don’t touch it.”

He gave her a surprised look, the power of her gaze quelling the dismissive retort that was forming on his lips. She was seriously worried about it…worried about him. And a part of him was deeply touched at the concern in her eyes. She was honestly and sincerely worried, very worried, and to know that she cared that much, it truly touched him. “Summer,” he said in a gentle tone, reaching out a foreleg and putting his hoof on her shoulder. “I’ll be alright, I promise. But if it worries you that much, then I’ll do what you ask. I won’t touch the Night Stone unless I have no other choice. And if you’re there to help me, then I won’t have to touch it at all. Just help me get close enough to use the mirror, and we can steal it right out of the building without getting anywhere near it. I can teleport it to us, shrink it to make it easy to carry, then you’ll get us out of the Nightlands in minutes. If we do it right, I won’t have to touch it at all.”

“You promise?” she pressed.

“I promise,” he answered. He was a bit surprised when she lunged forward and wrapped her forelegs around his neck and shoulders, hanging onto him “Whoa, hey now, sassy mare, personal space,” he joked gently, but that just made her wrap her legs around him even tighter. “Summer.”

“I’ll do everything I can to keep you safe,” she said close to his ear. “I promise.”

The power and emotion in her voice startled him, caused him to lift his foreleg and pat her on the back and shoulders comfortingly…and he couldn’t help but realize how nice it felt to be this close to her.

And what Moonshade said to him hit him, a sudden revelation. He was doing this for her. Not for the Princess, not for Equestria, not for the thestrals or the Nightlands, but for Summer Dawn. Because if he didn’t, then her life would be disrupted, that the innocent joy he saw in her eyes and her actions would dim as the harsh reality of war, strife, and turmoil infected her perfect life. He would keep her safe, he would protect her, and protect the somewhat sheltered life she led. She was so charmingly naïve about some things while being so worldly about others, so infectiously enthusiastic about magic, and he wanted her to keep that foal-like innocence about the harsh realities of the world. He wanted to keep the joy in her life.

She was the only thing in Canterlot he would fight to protect.

Could this be…love? Did he love Summer Dawn? She was definitely a friend. He enjoyed being with her, being around her, and he thought about her all the time. Was that love? Did the fact that his home seemed empty when she wasn’t there mean he loved her? Did the fact that he arranged his days around her mean that he loved her? He’d never been in love before, so he had no idea what he was supposed to think, what it meant. All that he really knew was that she was the brightest part of his life, and he didn’t want to be without the light she brought into it. If that was love, then so be it. If that wasn’t love, then so be it. Either way, everything he was doing, he was doing for her.

It took her a little while to settle down, and she looked a little sheepish, even a bit embarrassed, when she finally let go of him. She cleared her throat briskly and moved the bowl to the table with her magic, turning away form him and almost trotting over. He didn’t press the issue, gave her a bit of space, turning partially away to move towards the pantry and opening his wings out fully, shivering them, then closing them again. He fished what was left of the blackcap bread out of the pantry and carried it over to the table, opening his wings enough to sit down without the spines scraping against the floor. She didn’t want to meet his eye as she ate, as if she felt she crossed some invisible boundary…but he couldn’t figure out what, or why. She’d hugged him before, even kissed him, and had never acted like this afterward. Those had been times when she was worried about him, just like this time, but they’d been more immediate, more a reaction to him being in a sick bed than a worry about what may come. She ate the entire bowl in silence, almost awkward silence, then washed it as he finished his bread. He put his own dish away and walked up the wall, towards the storage room, as she almost compulsively cleaned his plate as well, then he dug out something he’d made a while ago, but had never used.

She looked up at him as he came back down the wall on three hooves, carrying a sturdy vest-like garment made of heavy canvas. He returned to the floor and approached her as she walked towards the couch in the living area in the cave, giving him a curious look. “What is that?” she asked.

“A while ago, you made me promise to take you flying. I never got around to fulfilling it,” he told her calmly. “I guess with everything that happened, all the craziness, it just got…forgotten. Well, I am a thestral that lives up to my obligations,” he declared in an excessively noble voice. “Put this on, so I don’t rip your fur and skin off. And you might want to bring your heat stone, it’ll get cold out there.”

The smile that slowly bloomed on her face was all the warmth he needed, as she took command of the vest with her magic and floated it over to her. She shrugged it on over her head the moment she figured out how to put it on, then tucked the torc holding the heat stone underneath it as he walked towards the door, flexing his wings to get them warmed up. He was easily strong enough to carry a passenger, any thestral in his family was thanks to their tall, heavily built bodies and large wings, especially a unicorn as lithe as Summer Dawn. He opened the door as she hurried over to him, the awkwardness of a few moments ago completely forgotten as she went out ahead of him and stood on the small platform that formed his porch, shaped so it was nearly impossible to see from the ground. Her house was visible just below them and to the left, the waterfall that fell onto her property and which gave the manor its name just to the left of them, the sound of its tumbling water like music in the night. But to the right, down there on the ground, was North Star’s manor, and from up here, it looked…ominous. He looked down at it as Summer Dawn made room for him, her hooves right on the edge of the platform, proving that she wasn’t afraid of heights…but she had no reason to be. Even if she fell, she could easily catch herself long before she got anywhere near the ground.

“Ready?” he asked after he closed and locked the door.

“Ready!” she said eagerly. She watched him as he vaulted straight up, getting enough air under his hooves to use his wings, then they pulled him higher into the air. He drifted directly over her, then reached down and put both forehooves on the vest, clinging to it just behind her shoulders, the optimum place where she would feel very little discomfort. He had plenty of practice doing this with his brother, and since Silver Moon was so much bigger than Summer Dawn, he had no doubt he could easily carry her.

If anything told a pony just how strong a flyer he was, it was that. That he could carry a pony that weighed more than he did betrayed just how strong his wings were. He certainly wasn’t doing any aerobatics when he carried his brother, but he had no problems carrying him as he flew. He pulled them up and out off the platform, then she gave a gasp when he suddenly dove down. He pulled out of the descent right over the rooftops of the rowhouses, then she gave a bright laugh when he swooped up and banked, giving a very lazy roll, letting her feel the force swinging her around, then gave a wide loop around the palace. Her self-levitation couldn’t come anywhere near as fast as he was going, and it was that speed that was delighting her, watching the rooftops of Canterlot whiz by under her hooves, feeling the biting cold air rush against her face. He ranged out past the edge of the city, the streets and houses below suddenly giving way to a vast black abyss as they went out over the mountainside and into the valley, then turned widely, swinging back around to let her see the lights of Canterlot from the air almost on level with the Royal Palace, which even to thestral eyes looked majestic and beautiful. He banked upwards sharply and climbed higher and higher over the city, climbing up the mountainside, until they reached the snow-capped peak, jagged and broken and covered with both ice and snow. He flew a full circle of the peak, coming back around to Canterlot, then Summer Dawn gave a scream when he suddenly dove, pulling her close to his belly and tucking in his wings for a power dive.

“This…is…amazing!” she managed to shout as they hurtled towards the city below at shocking speed, then she gave a gasp when his tail whipped around and slapped against her belly, clinging to it and holding fast, then pulling her tightly against him as he pulled out of the dive. His tail on her belly gave him three holds on her, allowed him to pull out of the dive without her swinging wildly out and getting her back twisted. They came down so low that they were below the rooftops along the Promenade, the buildings and housing a shadowy blur on both sides as they raced along the second story level, then he ascended again, banked towards the edge of the city, and then left it behind, flying out into the valley whose south end held Ponyville and whose northwestern edge held Cloudsdale, at least most of the time.

For two hours, Starjumper flew Summer Dawn through the central marches of Equestria, flying her up to Cloudsdale and letting her see it from the vantage point of a flyer, then down to Ponyville to fly over Princess Twilight’s crystal-tree palace, then over the Everfree Forest, where they saw two manticores flying low and slow over the treetops, no doubt hunting. He took her to the top of the tallest peak in the Foal Mountains, which was not Canterlot’s mountain, then down into the depths of Ghastly Gorge. He let her enjoy the wind in her face and her hooves having nothing under them but empty air, then he ascended up and slowed, then landed on a cloud hanging low in the valley not far from Canterlot. The capitol city was visible on the clear night to the northeast and the lights of Ponyville were visible to the south, Princess Twilight’s castle easily visible from that distance. He set her down—she was still wearing the pegasus feather charm, which would allow her to walk on clouds—and then let go of her, then flitted to the side and dropped down onto the cloud beside her, his hooves sinking into the cloud a little from the force of his landing, but then he sprang back up and bobbed a little, which made her giggle a bit.

“That was so amazing!” she said brightly as she nearly trotted to the edge of the cloud, then looked down. “I can totally understand why you love flying so much!”

“If I had to choose between my horn and my wings, I’d take my wings,” he told her honestly, walking up beside her and looking down himself. “I love magic, but nothing compares to the freedom I feel when I have the wind under my wings, the ground far under my hooves, and the entire world on the horizon. Sometimes I think I could reach up and touch the stars,” he said distantly, looking up at the bright winter night sky, a carpet of stars glittering in the darkness and a crescent moon hanging high in the sky. “Once, I flew up so high that I passed out,” he told her. “Where the air was so thin that I couldn’t breathe anymore. I woke up about five seconds from hitting the ground,” he chuckled without humor. “And Luna’s moon, was Mom furious. She told me never to do that, but I just couldn’t help myself. I was young, and silly, and I was trying to fly high enough to see the stars from above instead of below.”

“Since when were you ever young and silly, Star?” she asked playfully.

“A long time ago, it feels sometimes,” he replied soberly, sitting down at the edge of the cloud, opening his wings fully so they didn’t poke into the cloud, raising them up over his back. He was quiet a long moment, then he gave a sigh. “Summer.”

“Yes?”

“You made me promise to be careful. Now I want you to promise me something.”

“What is it?”

“Don’t forget the pony you first met,” he told her, looking over at her. “When we leave Equestria, you’re going to see the worst part of me. The thestral in me,” he said, closing his eyes halfway and looking down, looking at nothing. “I’m not a unicorn. I’m not an Equestrian pony. I am a Lykan. I am a predator. I have it within me the capacity to kill, and to kill without remorse or regret. I was born from a race of warriors, and I’ve been taught since I was a foal that violence is my best defense against those that would do me harm. When you see that, when you see the part of me I keep hidden from the world, just remember the pony you met and know that I will always be that pony to you. What you may see me do to others, I could never do to you. Never you.”

She was quiet a long moment, then reached over and raised his chin, making him look at her. “I’ve already seen that part of you, Star,” she told him earnestly. “When you fought Moonshade and the other thestrals. I saw the warrior in you then, and I wasn’t afraid of it. It’s a part of who you are, and without it, you wouldn’t be the pony I know. You wouldn’t be you. There is no Starjumper Astra without this,” she said, reaching over and touching the leading edge of his wing with her hoof. “This is who you are, and without it, you wouldn’t be that pony I first met. This makes you strong, Starjumper Astra, far stronger than any other pony in Canterlot, and what girl doesn’t admire a strong stallion?” she asked in a winsome voice, giving him a gentle smile. She ran her hoof along the edge of his wing, then touched his shoulder tentatively. “You’re cold,” she observed.

“I’m used to flying in the winter,” he replied stoically.

“Hmph,” she sounded, then to his surprise, she cuddled up against his side, leaning her head against his neck. She was warm because of the heat stone, enticingly warm, and he covered her with his wing without even thinking about what he was doing.

It was a simple act, but it told him far more than any words ever could. He leaned his head down over hers, felt her push the top of her muzzle up under his chin, her horn rubbing against the his jaw and the side of his head, and he pulled her against him with his wing just a little more. He didn’t have to say a word. Neither did she. And in that moment, he did not care about anything else. The world ceased to exist, leaving nothing but him, her, the little cloud that was his new universe, and the chilly air that made him appreciate the warmth of her against him that much more.

His life had just changed. He knew it. His life was no longer him, it was her. She was the most important thing in this new universe, and there was nothing more in the world that he wanted than to see her smile. To hear her laugh. To give him those adorably acerbic looks when he teased her. To see the delight in her eyes when she learned something new about magic.

To feel the warmth of her against him on a cold winter night.

To be with her, always.

This had to be love. It just had to be. And if this was what love was, then so be it.

So be it.

Worst Kept Secrets

It was a day filled with endless opportunity.

Summer Dawn drifted awake in her bedroom, the winter sunlight streaming in through the large windows on the other side of the room, and her very first thought was about last night. She’d gotten home well after midnight, spending hours just sitting on that cloud snuggled up against Starjumper’s side, as they shared a long, quiet, magical night of just being together. A night without words, a night without distractions, and a night where the last of Starjumper’s walls had come down.

She hadn’t been planning anything like this, but she certainly wasn’t unhappy with the result. Most ponies in Canterlot didn’t understand Starjumper, not the way she did, and that was just fine with her. Over the weeks and moons she had known him, he had very slowly, very carefully let down his guard around her, letting her see inside the fortress of his private self little by little, and the more of it he revealed, the more she liked what she saw. He had some rough edges, there was no question about that, but they were a part of what made him so special…so beautiful. At his core, he was actually a very shy, introverted pony who used his size and his appearance as a bluff, a bluster to make ponies leave him alone…even as he held out hope that they wouldn’t be afraid of him. He had spent almost his entire life hiding a secret, a secret that made it so hard for him to be open with other ponies, and yet despite all that, all his attempts to push ponies away, he had always held out hope that he would find a Summer Dawn among them, a pony that would push right back and push herself into his life. A friend of Starjumper had to be patient and understanding, had to be assertive without being pushy.

She’d never really planned to fall in love with him, but everything about him was a mystery she couldn’t resist, and the more she came to know him, the more she came to respect and admire him. She supposed that her admiration and respect had blossomed into something more. And lucky her, the fact that she was the only pony in Canterlot he would allow anywhere near him had made it fairly easy. She’d had no competition for his affection, and among mares, that competition could be both fierce and savage.

There were significantly more mares than stallions in Equestria, and there was an old saying that went timid mares are single mares. And that statement was oh so true. There was almost no doubt that any stallion a mare had her eye on was also in the sights of at least one other mare, so the social conventions of dating and romance were often full contact sports when it came to mares jockeying to catch a stallion’s attention. And once a mare had a stallion, she had to fight to keep him…and sometimes that meant literally fight. There were more than a few stories about even Canterlot elite mares getting into physical altercations over stallions, and her own mother had more stories like that about her than about any other mare in Canterlot. Her mother had literally fought for her father, and then fought to keep him once she had him. The fact that Starjumper was the only stallion in Canterlot that the mares weren’t eyeing had made it that much easier for her to swoop in and capture him for herself. In a way, that had really helped, because it put no pressure on either of them. They were able to go at a slow, easy pace, giving him time and opportunity to conquer his fear and reach out, which would be the only way a mare would catch Starjumper Astra.

Starjumper thought she was so demure and gentle…he had no idea just how much like him she could be if she was suitably provoked. And another mare trying to muscle in on her stallion would definitely be one of those triggers.

He was intelligent. He was powerful, both physically and magically. But he was damaged. His secret made him skittish, shy, suspicious, and really, the only way a mare was going to get anywhere near him was the way she had, very slowly, very carefully, almost like a pony trying to help an animal that had suffered abuse. What he was was nothing to be ashamed of, but his need to hide it had made him almost crippled in social situations. Every pony around him was a potential threat, an enemy, and that made it awfully darn hard for him to find a marefriend, or even a regular friend.

She knew just what to do. She knew him better than he thought, almost as well as he knew himself, and she knew how to both make him happy and keep him by her side…and it would be so simple. She just had to be kind. She had to be kind, be gentle, and above all, be patient, even now, even after he had accepted her affection and shown him his own…at least in his way. This was all new to him, and probably a little frightening as well given his personality, so she had to let him ease into the idea of it slowly until he was comfortable. In many ways, Starjumper was as skittish as a cornered mouse, and she had to carefully and patiently work around that aspect of his personality. She’d had to move carefully to insert herself into his life as her friend, and she had to be just as careful to allow him to adjust to idea that she was his marefriend. Change would come to them, as their relationship shifted from friendship to romance, but it would come in its own time, at its own pace. And she only needed to be patient enough to allow it to bloom on its own. And when it did, it would be a flower as beautiful as anything in the Royal Garden.

Keeping him would be easy. All she had to give him was what had been missing from his life without trying to change it too much, to show him the kindness that no other pony had, and he would never leave her side. She would be the same companion she had been to him since he started tutoring her, to not let this change in their relationship change their relationship. Yes, she loved him. Yes, he loved her. But that didn’t change the fact that they were friends, and that friendship had to endure for their love to flourish. Starjumper could not function in a “love-hate” relationship, a relationship filled with fiery drama and fights and silliness like many relationships in Canterlot tended to be. He also wouldn’t function in a relationship where either of them tried to force change. That wasn’t how Starjumper worked, and for that matter, that wasn’t how she worked either, so in that respect they were quite compatible. She was her own pony. He was his own stallion. They were who they were, and it was who they were that had caused them to fall in love. They didn’t need to change, either of them. Things would change in their lives, but those changes would come slowly, as they adjusted to each other, and they would be changes that happened naturally, not as the result of active force. Like two vines sprouting side by side, they would entwine with one another as they grew without any help, until they were one.

He was really that simple of a stallion, and that simplicity made him so real to her, far more substantial than most of the stallions in Canterlot. All he needed was gentle love without frills, without blaring trumpets or ridiculous displays. A love that accepted him for what he was even as it demanded that he accept her for what she was, to have her love him the same way she liked him…kindly, patiently, and reservedly.

She was just so glad that he never had to feel like he was alone now. He had her, and what was more, he had real friends in her parents, and even her own friends who had accepted him. He didn’t have to be alone anymore…and now she just had to convince him to stay close to her, maybe even stay in Canterlot. Which might not be that hard, given last night. She would demand he stay close so they could see each other, and his very clever hidden home was the perfect place for him to do just that. There, he would be secret and he would be safe, and he just might decide to stay there with the enticement that she lived just at the bottom of the waterfall from him.

After fully waking up, she nearly floated down to the kitchen, where Withers was already at work on dinner, preparing some of the ingredients he would use later when he started cooking in earnest. “Good morning, little miss,” he said with a smile. “You look to be a in a good mood.”

“I am, Withers,” she replied with a radiant smile. “Where are Mom and Dad?”

“I believe that they are out with the Astras,” he answered. “They debated waking you for your lessons, but given how late you got in last night, they felt you needed the sleep.”

“What time is it?”

“Nearly eleven,” he answered.

She gasped. “I am so late! He’s gonna kill me!” she blurted, turning a circle. “Where is my saddlebag? No nevermind, I left it in his place. I gotta go!” And before he could respond, her horn blazed with intense pink magic, and she teleported herself out of the kitchen in a circular burst of magic.

She appeared in a pitch dark room, mostly quiet but with the very faint humming sound from the waterfall cascading down the mountainside not far from the cave, which vibrated through the stone. She formed a point of light at the tip of her horn and looked around, wondering where he was, then she thought to look up. He was hanging off the ceiling at the very top of dome, right beside Rocky’s perch, hanging from the stone by the end of his tail, his back legs just resting but his front legs clinging to his chest, his hooves pressed against each other and his forelegs clinging to his chest so they didn’t dangle over his head. He was asleep!

Well, that was no surprise. Last night, their quiet, private time was rudely interrupted by Moonshade, who had somehow tracked them down and scolded him for being late for wingblade practice. He’d most likely been up all night training. His armor was laying on one of the couches in the middle of the room, a couple of the pieces on the floor, showing that he’d taken it off without much care for where it ended up, betraying how tired he must have been. He was too much of a neat freak to tolerate such sloppiness unless he was utterly exhausted. She nearly jumped when something landed on her back, but when she heard the deep-pitched squeak and felt the claws dig into her shoulder a tiny bit, she realized it was Rocky. “Hey Rocky,” she said in a low whisper. “Has he been asleep all morning?”

He gave a low squeak, which she really didn’t understand, then she turned when she heard the latch on the door unlock. That had to be either his parents or her parents, nopony else knew how to open the door. No, wait, they’d just teleport in, so that meant that it had to be Princess Celestia! She was the only one that actually used the door! And sure enough, as light flooded into the apartment, the flowing multicolored mane of Princess Celestia preceded her as she stepped just inside. Summer Dawn winced against the light, raised a foreleg and shaded her eyes, at least until the Princess closed the door. She too conjured a faint light at the tip of her horn and advanced towards her with surprising stealth, given she was wearing metal horseshoes. “I see he’s still asleep,” she whispered. “Did you only just arrive, Summer Dawn?”

“Yes ma’am,” she whispered back. “We should let him sleep, he hasn’t had much rest the last couple of days, and we’re leaving tomorrow morning. He needs to rest before we leave, it’s going to be a long trip for him. He’s going to be flying a long way.”

“I agree,” she nodded. “We can retire to the palace, my young one, and I’ll walk you through the last of the variants of the spell. You’re ready for the journey now, but I think he’d be quite pleasantly surprised to find that you’ve learned aspects of the spell he didn’t teach you,” she said with a smile and a wink.

“Please, your Highness!” she whispered eagerly. Yesterday she’d found that she learned well under Princess Celestia, she had a very laid back, easy-going style of teaching that Summer Dawn found quite pleasant. And she learned well from her, because just like Starjumper, the Princess didn’t tell her to read a book. She used magic as she taught, and had her use magic as well, and that was how Summer Dawn learned best. She was a doer, not a reader.

But she still far preferred to learn from Starjumper. He understood her, and every lesson with him was challenging, satisfying, and fun.

“Would you like to come as well, Rocky?” the Princess asked, looking over Summer Dawn’s shoulder.

In answer, the rock bat took off from her back and flew up to his hanging perch, then settled in just beside Starjumper and wrapped his wings around himself.

“I guess not, your Highness,” Summer Dawn whispered with a smile, then she looked to the side and caused a piece of parchment and a quill and ink pot to float over from his writing desk. “We should leave him a note.”

They returned to the palace the same way Summer Dawn arrived, as the Princess teleported them into one of the many rooms within the structure, a room holding two large bookshelves full of books and a large writing table, along with a huge pair of windows that looked out over the valley to the west of Canterlot, Cloudsdale just visible in the distance. It was the Princess’ study, and it was here that she’d tutored Summer Dawn yesterday while Starjumper was asleep. She took a seat on a frilly padded stool by the large, ornate writing desk as the Princess sat on the cushioned seat before it, and then they got to work. The Princess was teaching her the variants of the spell that Starjumper hadn’t, mainly the permanent version of the spell, and time suddenly seemed to both stop and speed up at the same time as she got engrossed in her lesson. The Princess was a good teacher—though she was no Starjumper—so Summer Dawn was able to quickly grasp the differences between a charged shrink spell and a permanent one. She had her practice the spell on several objects her guards brought in, then they took a break for lunch.

It was mid afternoon when a guard escorted Starjumper into the room. Summer Dawn’s eyes lit up at seeing him, a warm glow flushed through her, and she had to resist the urge to run up to him and nuzzle him in greeting. He maintained his stoic expression, but his eyes did soften when he looked at her, and he gave her a very slight smile. “Did you rest well, Starjumper?” the Princess asked as he bowed to her.

“I slept entirely too long, your Highness,” he answered. “How is she doing?”

“She has something to show you,” she smiled in reply, giving Summer Dawn an expectant look. Summer Dawn grinned and turned her head to a vase, then she cast the permanent version of the shrink spell upon it, causing it to shrink down to the size of a toy.

“Well done,” he said with a nod of approval. “She picked that up quickly.”

“It’s not really that hard,” Summer Dawn said modestly. “I don’t understand why you didn’t teach me the permanent version first.”

“It seemed easy because of what you learned before that,” he replied calmly. “Your Highness, since Summer Dawn is ready, we should leave tonight. I can fly the first leg of the trip and give Moonshade a chance to get some sleep. She looked tired last night, and we both have some long days ahead of us.”

“I—well, I guess we could,” Summer Dawn said. “But Mom and Dad were making a big meal for us before we go.”

“We can still eat, we just can’t stay all night. We can’t leave right at sunset anyway. I want to reach Manehattan right before dawn so we have a chance to buy anything we may have forgotten or overlooked before we start across the sea. So we’ll be leaving two hours before midnight, and we’ll reach Manehattan just before dawn.”

“A well-reasoned plan,” the Princess said approvingly. “And since your regular tutor is here, my young one, I’ll release you to his charge. I’m sure the two of you have much work to do before you leave tonight.”

“Well, we have most of it done, but there are some things I want to talk about,” Summer Dawn said, giving him a warm look.

“I’ll have a chance to go over our supplies one more time, just to be sure,” Starjumper added.

Summer Dawn stepped over to him. “I guess we’ll see you when we get back, your Highness?”

She shook her head. “I want to speak to you before you leave,” she said. “So come to the palace. You’ll be beginning your journey from here.”

“We’ll be here three hours before midnight, your Highness. That should give us enough time to go over things with you and Moonshade before we leave.”

“I’ll tell the guards to expect you,” she agreed.

“By your leave?” he asked.

“Feel free, Starjumper,” she smiled.

Without preamble or warning, the entire world flashed in golden magic, and they were standing in the utter darkness of his cave home. He lit one of the lanterns with his magic, then leaned down and nuzzled her gently. She returned it with a thrill chasing through her. “Did you sleep well?” she asked, rubbing her muzzle and cheek against his.

“Yes, thank you for letting me. I think I needed it,” he replied, then he led her towards the sitting couch. “And thank you for being discreet in front of the Princess.”

“I know you, Star, I know you’d find it…embarrassing if I showed you any affection in public,” she told him easily. “You’re a very private pony, and I’d be a poor marefriend if I stomped on your feelings that way.”

“I’m glad you understand,” he said with relief in his voice. “But we need to decide what to do about our parents.”

She had to laugh. “My mom and dad aren’t going to care, Star. They like you. They really like you. They know who you are, and they respect it. You don’t have to worry at all about them having a fit or anything.”

“Even though I’m a Lykan?”

“They don’t care that you’re a Lykan, silly,” she retorted immediately.

“They might if I’m more than your teacher. I mean, they’re society ponies, Summer, and I’m not exactly good for their reputation.”

“Starjumper,” she chided. “They have stood by you this entire time, even when it was hurting their social standing.”

“It’s a little different to defend me as just some pony than it is to defend me as the stallion dating their daughter,” he said delicately. “I’m sure most of Canterlot society wouldn’t see me as society material even if I wasn’t a Lykan.”

“Well, it’s a good thing I don’t care what society thinks about you,” she said simply. “I’m not going to be a socialite when I graduate from school. I’m going to be a magician. I’ll be too busy with magic to care about parties or gossip or whatever.”

He had to laugh. “Now you sound like me.”

“Are you complaining about it?” she challenged, which made him laugh harder.

“Not at all,” he said with a warm smile down at her. They reached the couch, then he set down her pillow on the floor. She sat down on it without prompting as he sat on the stone in front of her…just much closer than usual. She noticed that he could touch noses with her if he leaned down. “As far as my parents go, I think you’d better be ready for it.”

“For what?”

“For the interrogation,” he warned. “Especially from Mom. I think you may have noticed, but my mother has a very different idea of what’s proper than other ponies. That applies to…well, to more delicate subjects as well. Expect her to ask a whole lot of nosy questions that may embarrass the hay out of you, and do it in front of the family, both mine and yours,” he warned. “Thestrals have a very different society with very different social boundaries, Summer, and no matter how long my mother lives in Equestria, she is a thestral. Be ready for it, and warn your parents about it.”

“So, she won’t object?”

“Of course not, she adores you,” he replied with a shake of his head. “She’s been harping at me to find a marefriend since I was a colt, she’s always felt that I wouldn’t feel so isolated if I’d just let a pony in. And the irritating thing is, she was right,” he growled, almost in annoyance, which made Summer Dawn laugh.

“She was. Now, no matter how alone you may feel, you will always have me, Star.”

“I’ll never need anypony else,” he replied earnestly, his heart in his eyes as he looked down at her, and he did lean his head forward. She was more than happy to meet him halfway, and they rubbed noses affectionately.

“Now, back to business,” he said abruptly as he pulled his nose away, sitting fully erect in front of her and taking on a very serious expression, the tone of his voice making her giggle despite herself. “Let’s go over what you learned from the Princess while I’ve been either too busy to teach you or sleeping.”

They nearly finished going over the three different variants of the shrink spell Summer Dawn learned from the Princess before their parents arrived, all four appearing in an azure flash of magic. Comet Tail wilted a bit after they appeared in the cave, betraying the fact that he was the one that cast the spell, but then he perked back up as some of his strength returned. “I see you’re awake, Starjumper,” Fleur de Lis said. “Did Summer Dawn tell you about dinner?”

He nodded. “To warn you, we’ll be leaving late tonight instead of in the morning,” he answered. “I want to time it so we arrive in Manehattan right at dawn, so we have a chance to buy anything we may have forgotten or overlooked before we start out over the eastern sea.”

“A sound plan, son,” Comet Tail nodded in approval.

“Well then, I think we should be moving this little party to the house,” Nightsong declared. “I helped with the dinner, made some authentic thestral dishes for you to try, Fleur.”

“She and Withers have kept us out of the kitchen all day,” Fancy Pants chuckled.

“Surprises aren’t very surprising when you know what they are,” she replied, then she looked to Starjumper. “How did your practice go last night?”

“Moonshade is a taskmaster,” he replied. “My wings were so sore by sunrise I was almost glad to be rid of them.”

“I thought you were used to the weight of the armor,” Fleur de Lis said.

“I am, but using wingblades creates an impact against my wings when they connect with the target,” he explained. “Doing that a few times, you don’t notice it, but doing it again and again for half the night, by sunrise my wings felt like they’d been stomped on by every yak in Yakyakistan. I’m sure they’re bruised from the elbow all the way to the wingtips along the leading edge.”

“I’d never considered that,” she mused.

“I hadn’t really either, until I started to feel the pain,” he agreed. “Well, if we’re going to go, we’d better get going,” he prompted. “I think five is a bit too much for you, Dad.”

“I’m not sure I could manage five either,” Fancy Pants admitted.

“I don’t know any landing points inside the house, but I don’t really need to. Summer can do it,” Starjumper said confidently.

“Me? Five?” she almost protested.

“Easily,” he said with a calm dismissiveness that gave her actual confidence. If he believed in her that much, then she could do it. “Just don’t get exotic.”

“Okay,” she said, putting a hoof out and nudging him. “We all need to be standing together. I’m not as good as you are.”

“Are you sure she can handle this, Starjumper?” Fancy Pants asked.

“Positive,” he replied.

A moment later, she proved that his confidence was not misplaced. In a brilliant burst of pink magic that covered her eyes and that curious sensation of heat passing over her, she managed to teleport them from Starjumper’s cave to the main parlor in the house, a room large enough for all five of them to fit without having to move anypony, and doing it without getting anypony’s mane singed. Starjumper didn’t so much as blink, he just took a few steps forward as soon as they appeared and looked around. “Nice,” he said appreciatively.

“I always did like this room,” Fancy Pants said with a bit of pride. “My father decorated it, and I’ve left it be. This room reminds me of him, and those are good memories,” he said with a musing smile on his face.

Summer Dawn noticed that Starjumper quite effectively split them into two groups by convincing his parents to go with him to look at the gardens, leaving Summer Dawn with her mother and father, leaving her to tell them in private. They walked down the long hallway towards the dining room, and she didn’t waste any time. “Mom, Dad, I do have something to tell you,” she said abruptly as they walked down the wide hallway, with a thick blue rug down the center and small stands and tables along the walls holding small sculptures, glassware, or floral arrangements. “Last night, me and Star, well, we decided to start dating,” she announced.

They both looked at her, and her mother grinned while her father laughed. “Oh, so you finally stopped dancing around each other, you silly mare?” her mother asked.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, you made that decision long before we met him, and you’ve been so busy working to make him see it that you didn’t see that he felt the same way,” she replied. “I could tell in the way you acted after the thestrals attacked him, and how he acted towards you. Nightsong actually wanted to make a bet to see how long it would take for you to admit it to each other.”

She blushed a bit. “I wasn’t—I mean, we weren’t—“

“Ponies can say much more with actions than words, my girl,” her father said. “Especially when the ponies watching know them. We know you, Summer, and it was all but a trumpet blaring from the top of the palace how you feel about him. Ten minutes after watching you with Star, we both knew that you saw him as far more than just a teacher.”

She had to give an embarrassed laugh. “Well, I feel stupid now,” she admitted. “I told him that you wouldn’t care about him being a Lykan.”

“Of course not. Who he is is far more important than what he is. Starjumper is a fine stallion, my girl, intelligent, educated, gifted, and with tremendous strength of character, and you won’t find better in Canterlot.”

“He’s the best thing that’s ever happened to you, Summer,” Fleur de Lis agreed. “He made you a strong, confident, formidable young mare with his lessons, and he truly, truly cares about you. Why, I wouldn’t be surprised if we’re planning a wedding this time next year,” she announced with a smile.

“Moooom,” she protested, which made her parents laugh.

“And I don’t think we even have to tell you that you have our blessing,” Fancy Pants continued. “Starjumper is a fine, fine stallion, and I think I can say that his parents have become some of our best friends over the last few weeks. Those are in-laws I will enjoy having around,” he chuckled. “Comet Tail is just as deceptively formidable as his son, a crafty businesspony, a talented and accomplished magician, and very, very smart, and Nightsong is quite interesting.”

“She’s as spicy as the food she cooks,” Fleur de Lis laughed. “She certainly makes spending time with her an adventure.”

“I like her too,” Summer Dawn agreed with a laugh. “But it’s good to hear that you don’t object. I’d hate to have to run away from home.”

They both laughed. “Not from this home, you will not,” Fancy Pants challenged. “The Waterfalls will be yours someday, my girl. And I think it will be the perfect place for one of Equestria’s most talented magicians to master her craft.”

“Aww, thanks, Dad,” she smiled up at him.

“We’re already started making plans to build a new library, make it more suited for a pony who’s going to need lots and lots of books,” Fleur de Lis told her. “We’re going to convert your wing of the house into a library for you, Summer, knock the walls down between the rooms and create a large open space with lots of room for bookshelves, and all those windows will give you a place with good natural lighting so it always feels bright and cheerful. We’re going to incorporate your bedroom into the library itself, so you’re not far from your bed when you get tired.”

“Wow, really?”

She nodded. “The current library isn’t really designed for a serious student of advanced magic,” she said. “So we’re going to create a space more proper for a pony that wants to follow that path.”

“And we don’t really use those rooms anyway,” Fancy Pants agreed. “When’s the last time a guest used the rooms in Summer’s wing? Three years ago? All that space is basically wasted, my dear girl, so we’re going to put it to use in the best way possible, by supporting your dream to be a magician.”

“Awww, thanks Dad, you guys are the best,” she declared, stepping over and nuzzling him as they walked.

“You’re more than welcome my dear. We’re going to have the work done while you’re on your journey, so don’t be surprised too much when you come home and find your room gone,” he smiled.

“Just don’t throw my things away,” she laughed.

They met back up with Starjumper and his family in the main parlor, and the fact that Nightsong all but galloped over to her betrayed the fact that he’d told them the truth. “Welcome to the family, my girl!” she said loudly, throwing a wing over her back and hugging her. “Now, how soon are you gonna make me a grandmare?”

Summer Dawn blushed furiously and gave Starjumper a stricken look, but he just shrugged his shoulders a bit…he had warned her, after all.

“Gee, can we go out for a while and maybe get married first, Nightsong?” Summer Dawn protested.

“Too much of a waste of time!” she declared. “I’m not getting any younger, and Silver Moon has failed in his duty as first born to be the first to give me grandfoals to spoil!”

“Well, we’re not on your schedule, so you’ll just have to wait,” she said primly, which made her laugh and also made both Starjumper and Comet Tail give her an approving look.

“Game on, ducky. Game on,” Nightsong threatened with a grin.

The special dinner that Withers and Nightsong had prepared was amazing. Withers had made some of her favorite dishes, and Nightsong had prepared several thestral dishes that were all spicy and delicious, in varying combinations. Their parents talked about the upcoming journey as she and Starjumper sat side by side and stayed more or less silent, him showing his affection subtly and quietly by wrapping the end of his tail around her own. That was his way, and it was part of why she loved him. Sitting there with Starjumper, with their parents, Summer Dawn felt incredibly good about everything, how well things were coming together both with them and their families. It almost felt like this was the way it was supposed to be, like the last pieces of the puzzle being put into place in her life, and she felt a wave of pure contentment wash through her. Studying magic with Starjumper, them improving each other in their magical skills, having him in her life, and knowing that him coming into her life would enrich it not just for her, but also for her family, it was a wonderful feeling.

Her mother had often told her when she was younger that the true test of a relationship was how it made a mare feel with the idea of being by a stallion’s side every moment of every day, day after day, month after month, year after year…and the idea of that, of spending her every waking moment with Starjumper, made her feel nearly giddy with anticipation. Starjumper was exactly the kind of stallion with whom she could spend her every moment, for the rest of her life.

But the revelry of the dinner had to yield to hard reality, and the reality was, they were on the eve of a long journey, and maybe something of an adventure. But there was no feeling that what was coming was going to be fun, she knew better than that. They were going to the Nightlands to save the thestrals from Moonshade’s mother’s insanity, which would in turn save Equestria from having to fight a war against Sombra and the thestrals he had under his control. But, given the rather clever plan they’d come up with, she didn’t feel like she’d be in any excessive danger. If they did it right, they’d be stealing the Night Stone from miles away, Starjumper using his amazing skill with teleportation to teleport the Night Stone right out of the castle from a long way away, and then be out of the Nightlands before the Night Queen could even call for the guards. So, while what they were doing was potentially dangerous, she felt that the danger was going to be in getting there, not in pulling off the heist.

Heist…but that was what it was. They were going to the Nightlands to steal something, so in a way, that made them bandits. Or thieves. But she’d take that title if it meant protecting Equestria.

Halfway through dinner, Starjumper changed into a thestral, and it hit her again how normal that felt to her now…and not just her, but also her family. It didn’t seem odd or exotic to her at all that he changed into a thestral at sunset, it was just who he was, part of normal life with him, and it was a fact that both she and her parents had accepted without any problems. They knew the truth of him, knew that his Lykan condition did not in any way change who he was inside, and it was who he was inside that she loved and her parents liked and respected.

After dinner, they got to work. They relocated to Starjumper’s cave home, and Starjumper and his father went through their supplies one more time with a checklist, making sure everything on the list was there. Summer Dawn managed to get her first look at the Stratus Barrel as they went through the supplies. It was much smaller than she expected, a very small cask about a foot feet high when sitting on its end and around a foot in diameter, with bronze bands and a wooden bottom but a silver top. There was a small, stout tap on the top of the cask, which she figured was how the cloud the cask carried was let out and put back in. The tap made the cask look like a water barrel, not a somewhat rare and valuable magical object. It was so small, she realized, that Starjumper and Moonshade wouldn’t be carrying it on their backs, they’d instead be carrying it either over their necks or in the saddlebag pouch they could easily reach, which she realized was sorta necessary. They had to be able to access the barrel without assistance to let the cloud out, and they couldn’t very well do that if it was strapped onto the pack saddle.

Her mother and father intruded on the inventory process when they came up to Starjumper’s home, and managed to pitch in a hoof without getting in the way. And given how much they were taking, more than enough food and supplies to last them a month all shrunk down to make it easy to carry. Starjumper was going under the assumption that they would have no chance to resupply once they left Equestria, and for one, she thought that was a smart way to go about it. Since she and him could shrink and unshrink their supplies as needed, it allowed them to carry enough to last the three of them two months without it weighing them down. They’d have plenty to eat, had three spare pack saddles in case the one they were using broke, and had all the equipment and supplies they needed to both set up camp on the cloud in the Stratus Barrel and camp out wherever they landed when they stopped.

She wasn’t left out of the inventory work, since she had her own things she was taking, and she and her mother went through them to make sure she had everything on her list. The most important of those items was the pegasus feather charm that would let her walk on clouds and the two heatstones that would keep her from freezing to death while shrunk and once they got to the Nightlands, which was high mountains currently in the middle of winter. That meant that the weather there would be like the arctic landscape around the Crystal Empire, outside the influence of the magic of the Crystal Heart that kept the Empire warm all year round. It took her nearly an hour just to go through her own pack, meticulously checking that every single item was there, was packed for carrying, and was organized so she knew where it was. She’d be carrying all her equipment in one side of her twin saddlebags, and the other bag would be what she used to carry her personal food and water for when she was shrunk.

She may be eager to go on this journey, but she understood that it was serious business, so she was treating it with the respect it was due.

Once they had everything checked, organized, and packed, it was time for them to go the palace. She had a long hug with her parents after they helped her put on her saddlebags, which were a bit heavy with everything she had in them. “You be very careful, my girl,” her father told her seriously. “And listen to Starjumper and Moonshade. They have experience with these kinds of things.”

“I will, Dad. And when they need me for my magic, I’ll be there for them,” she promised. “I won’t let them down.”

“We never doubted you would, daughter,” Fleur de Lis said proudly, giving her a hug.

She got even more hugs from Comet Tail and Nightsong when they joined Starjumper and his family, and Starjumper also didn’t get away unscathed. Her mother gave him a fond hug as his parents both hugged him. “You be careful out there, ducky,” Nightsong ordered, her voice much more serious than normal.

“I will, Nightsong, I promise,” she replied, patting the mare’s back and shoulder with her hoof. “I’ll spend most of the trip in a saddlebag looking out a little mesh window. I should be safe enough.”

“Don’t fall into that trap, ducky,” she warned. “When you cross the border into the Nightlands, you will be in enemy territory. Be ready to fight at any time, and make sure you’re rested and ready for action in case you do. Not every thestral you meet may be your enemy, but don’t trust anypony unless you’re absolutely sure you would put your life in their hooves.”

“I won’t,” she said, looking her in the eye after stepping back.

“We’ll be staying here in Canterlot until you return, right here in the cave,” Comet Tail told her after giving her a fond hug. “We’ll be homesitting and taking care of Rocky while you’re gone. Silver Moon is more than capable of running the shop for a while, and besides, it’s good practice for him for when he takes it over from me.”

“What about the fillies?”

“We didn’t want to pull them out of school, so they’ll be staying with Silver Moon,” he answered. “He’ll keep them under control.”

She had to smile. “Those two? I think he’ll be sending you a letter begging you to take them in a week.”

“You don’t know Silver Moon as well as we do, Summer,” Comet Tail chuckled. “Trust me, he can keep the fillies in line. Without Nightsong there to encourage them, they’re actually fairly well behaved.”

“Obedient foals are boring foals,” she said shamelessly, which made Summer Dawn giggle.

Once the goodbyes were exchanged, it was time to go, and Starjumper didn’t waste any time. He had her step up to him, both of them wearing their traveling saddlepacks, then she teleported them out of the cave and to the front gate of the Royal Palace, a place she knew well enough to choose as a landing point. The guards wasted no time opening the gates for them, and one of them escorted them into the throne room, where both Princesses and Moonshade were waiting, standing at the base of the dais holding the Royal Sisters’ thrones. The two regal alicorns started down the steps as they approached, and they bowed to them once they reached them, halfway into the hall.

Moonshade set the tone almost immediately. “Why aren’t you two in your armor?” she demanded.

“Equestria is friendly territory,” he replied evenly. “We’ll put it on before we leave Manehattan.”

“We’re actively working against my mother. There’s no such place as friendly territory until she’s off the throne,” Moonshade answered strongly. “If you think it’s beyond my mother to send thestral soldiers into Equestria to kill us, then you’d better rethink yourselves in a hurry. Both of you, put on your armor.”

“In this situation, it might be the best thing to do,” Princess Celestia said gently.

Summer Dawn didn’t say anything, and neither did Starjumper. They took off their packs and unpacked the armor, then she proved that she learned her lessons with it by putting it on in a matter of minutes. She left the helmet off, and since Moonshade wasn’t wearing her helmet either, she felt the thestral had no right to complain about that. Once that was done, the Princesses took them to an antechamber holding several large maps hanging on the walls, and Princess Celestia suggested a route for them. “The narrowest crossing of the Eastern sea is along this line,” she began, holding up a piece of white yarn with her magic, stretching it from where Manehattan was on the map to the opposite shore. “Once you reach the shore, turn slightly south and that will put you on course to reach Marette, the capitol of Maretonia. Deliver the message Moonshade is carrying to the Duke, and then make your way for Crystallon, the capitol of Unicornia. Here,” she said, picking up a pointer with her magic and touching another icon on the large map. “Deliver the message to the King, and then make your way for the Nightlands.”

Moonshade stepped up and took the pointer with her hoof, clinging to it, then she unfurled her wings and rose up to reach where the Nightlands was on the map, a good ten feet off the floor. “I’ve already plotted out our route through the Nightlands. We’ll be stopping at safe points approximately every twenty miles to establish points where Summer Dawn will teleport us when we make our escape with the Night Stone. These points are as close to a straight line as I could manage when I planned this out. Here, here, here, and here,” she relayed, touching the pointer to places on the map along a fairly straight course. “We need to time our arrival in the Nightlands so we cross into them from Unicornia as close to sunset as possible,” she stressed. “Thestrals are primarily nocturnal, but virtually all thestals sleep through the night during the winter, because of the cold. I’ve budgeted us two days to cross the Nightlands, stopping at this point for a quick rest, camping at this point during the daylight hours to stay out of sight, then stopping over at this point before we reach this one. When we get to point four, we’ll be within sight of the dome of darkness that covers the peak holding the castle,” she warned. “We hold up at this point until we’re ready to make our attempt on the castle itself, which means we wait until the right time so I can make my move with minimal resistance. If we’ve managed to get that far without detection or rousing my mother, I can bluff my way into the castle, get to the Night Stone, and set the mirror. If we’ve run afoul of the thestrals or my mother knows I’m coming to stop her, I’ll have to use an alternate plan to get in. I know the castle better than just about anypony, I grew up in that castle, and that means I know how to sneak in if I have to. I did it enough times as a filly and young mare, and I don’t think any other thestral in the castle knows about those old abandoned tunnels and passages. I’ll get into the chamber and set the mirror, then Starjumper does his thing. Once we secure the Night Stone, whichever of you will teleport us back to Unicornia in stages, as you said you could.”

“Easily,” Starjumper nodded. “Summer Dawn will be teleporting us out of the Nightlands, because most likely I’ll be too tied up with the Night Stone to do it.”

“That’s why I’m here. My magic will be there for us on our way to the Nightlands if it’s night and Starjumper can’t use his,” Summer Dawn nodded, “and I’ll get us out once we have the Night Stone.”

“It is wise to plan it so,” Princess Luna agreed with a nod. “Summer Dawn will not have the burden of the Night Stone upon her, and can devote all her energy and concentration to the task.”

“Precisely, your Highness. Summer won’t let us down,” Starjumper nodded, which made Summer Dawn beam a bit.

“And that’s more or less it,” Moonshade concluded. “It’s a fairly simple plan, but it doesn’t need to be complicated for us to do what we need to do. As long as you unicorns can back up your boasting when it comes to your magic, then this will be much easier than it would be without it.”

“We’ll get it done,” Starjumper declared.

“Then you are ready to go,” Princess Celestia declared in a grave voice. “Are you prepared?”

“As soon as Moonshade adds her equipment to the packs, we’re ready,” Starjumper answered.

That only took a short time. What she had were things the Princesses gave to her for the journey, things they thought she may need, including gear for camping in cold weather. Once that was all done, all the packs were checked, and the Princesses were satisfied with their preparations, they were walked out onto a large balcony off the throne room that overlooked the grand square, the balcony from which the Princesses often addressed the city during official functions. It felt a little strange to her to be up there, looking down over a cold, snow-swept, empty plaza beyond the fence. “Alright, Summer Dawn, it’s time,” Princess Celestia prompted. “Good luck to all of you, and safe journey.”

“Yes ma’am,” she replied. The Royal Sisters took a couple of cautionary steps back as Summer Dawn stepped up to Moonshade, then she cast the permanent variant of the shrink spell that the Princess had taught her. The world blurred and turned huge in the span of three heartbeats, and then they were the size of grasshoppers. Moonshade spread her wings and lifted into the air, put her hoof on the back of Summer Dawn’s armor, then picked her up and carried her up Starjumper’s now gigantic body, into the open flap of the bag designed to carry them. The inside had a flat bottom insert that gave them a stable base, and had already been prepared with things like three tents literally sewed into the foundation arrayed in a semicircle around a heat stone that would get hot enough to boil water, so they could cook hot meals and also warm the inside of the bag to keep the water they carried from freezing. They heard the Princess’ voice, now deep and loud and booming to their tiny ears, and they saw her looking through the mesh on the forward-facing side of the bag so they could look out and see where they were going, and would also allow air to flow through the bag so they didn’t suffocate. “Are you two alright?” she asked, her eye bigger than Summer Dawn’s shrunken body.

Knowing that the Princess couldn’t hear them in reply, she gave an exaggerated nod as Moonshade unbuckled her packs and set them down near the central area, where the heatstone that would serve as their campfire was inset into the false bottom, with a metal and ceramic ring around it to keep its heat from bleeding into the material around it.

“You should arrive at Manehattan just before dawn, Starjumper,” they heard Princess Luna say. “And arrive in time to decide if you need to stay over there to buy anything you think you may need. Is the Stratus Barrel full?”

“Yes, Princess,” they heard him answer. “It has a fairly good-sized cloud inside, more than large enough for three ponies.”

“Remember to show Moonshade how it works when she takes over flying,” the Princess said.

“Yes ma’am.”

“Moonshade is carrying the letters you are to deliver to Maretonia and Unicornia,” they heard Princess Celestia say. “I want you to write us a short letter concerning your journey and leave them with the Duke and the King, and they will send them on to us, so we are kept apprised of your progress.”

“I will, your Highness.”

“Are you ready to go, Starjumper?”

“Yes ma’am, I’m ready.”

“Then safe travels to all of you.”

Summer Dawn felt the bag shift and move, and then cold air started blowing in through the front-facing mesh, a constant steady breeze that pulled at her mane and tail, but wasn’t distracting. She looked out the rear-facing mesh and looked down and saw that they were in the air, Canterlot quickly retreating under them. They were on their way. They were actually on their way! She felt almost a little excited over the idea of it, the fact that they were now actually doing what they’d been planning, but she’d already been warned that a journey like this was actually going to be quite boring. There was very little for them to do riding in the bag, which was why they’d packed plenty of books to keep them entertained for the trip.

She came back over and sat at the “campfire” beside Moonshade, who was laying on her belly with her front hooves tucked, her eyes closed. She looked entirely comfortable laying there with her armor, and didn’t look in any way unsettled or excited…or much of anything. She had the same stoic expression that Starjumper often wore. And it occurred to her that she really didn’t really know her, or how to talk to her. She was so different from Starjumper, and acted nothing like the only other thestral she knew, Nightsong. All they’d ever talked about since they started planning this mission was just that, the mission. Moonshade never talked about anything else, as if the mission was the only thing that mattered and any frivolous conversation detracted from the mission.

Nightsong said that Moonshade was a soldier. That she was actually the paramount thestral soldier, what other thestral soldiers aspired to be, which meant that she was exceptionally skilled, highly disciplined, and Summer Dawn supposed that also meant that she didn’t have much of a life outside of the army…or that the army was her life. But, despite her total focus on the mission, Summer Dawn did kind of like her. “Now that we’re out of Starjumper’s hearing,” Summer Dawn said quietly, which made Moonshade open her eyes and look over at her. “Do you think he’s ready in case we run into trouble? As a thestral, I mean.”

“He should be alright,” she answered. “He’s not very skilled, but he has a lot of natural talent, and he has that Longwing strength. The question is, are you ready? If we end up in a fight, we’re gonna need you. Do you have what it takes to use your magic against another pony, fully knowing you may kill them?”

“I’m not sure that’s a question that any pony can answer until they face it for themselves,” she said sagely. “I’d like to say that I’m ready, but how could I really know? All I can say is that if I have to decide between us and them, I’m going to choose us.”

“Good attitude to have,” she said with a slight nod, closing her eyes again. “And smart of you to understand that you won’t know what you can do until you have to do it. But I think you have it in you. You certainly weren’t afraid to use magic against us when we came after Starjumper.”

“If he’d have taught me any real battle magic, I’d have used it,” she admitted. “So I guess I do know. If I have to hurt somepony to protect Star, I will.”

“Did he teach you any of that battle magic for the trip?”

“There wasn’t time,” she said. “But there are a few spells I already know that I can use in a fight, like the freezing spell. Its ultimate form is a beam of utter cold that instantly freezes anything it hits, and I think that would be a weapon if I used it against a pony.”

“Go for the wings,” she said simply. “The wings are the most vulnerable point on any flyer, and without them, they’re out of the fight. Freeze a thestral’s wing, and he’ll drop like a rock. That, or you could just shrink them to this size. They won’t be much of a threat.”

“That’s true,” she agreed with a bit of a laugh. “I should warn you, I can be a little noisy. It’ll be too dark for me to read in here, so I’m going to use a spell that makes a magical voice read the book to me. I’ll keep the volume down.”

“It won’t bother me,” she assured her. “A bivouac is never entirely quiet, so I’m used to sleeping with background noise.”

“There…there is one thing I was hoping you could do while we’re on the way,” she said. “I’d like to learn a little Thestralla. Just the most basic of the basics. If you and Star talk to any thestrals in the Nightlands, I think it would be best if I can at least understand a little bit of it. You know, important words that should put me on guard, words like fight, or arrest, words like that. Words that would warn me something’s about to happen.”

She opened her eyes and looked over and up at her. “That’s a good idea,” she replied. “And I suppose it will give me something to do when I’m not flying. I’ll just warn you right now.”

“What?”

“Thestralla is nothing like Ponish,” she said. “It’s a very hard language for ponies to learn, because it’s so different. That’s why we learn Ponish and use it, because so few ponies can speak Thestralla.”

“Hard how?”

“In just about every way, Thestralla is different from Ponish,” she replied. “When you say I walk down the street, the closest approximation to how you say it in Thestralla is I street down walk. The heatstone is red, so it’s a red heatstone. In Thestralla, it’s a heatstone red. Thestralla also doesn’t have phrases like down the street or inside the bag. It’s street down and bag inside. In Ponish, you can do this thing and do that thing, I think the teaching term for it is a clause. There’s no clause in Thestralla. There’s no way to connect different actions together in the same sentence. A sentence will only have one action, one verb. The only way different actions in a sequence are connected is that they come one after the other. When you say I do this and I do that in Ponish, in Thestralla, it is I this do. I that do. So, if you were to say I went to the store this morning to buy something in Ponish, the closest you get in Thestralla is I during morning store went. Something bought. But we don’t use anywhere near that many words, since Thestralla is a language that assumes that the listener is smart enough to put the pieces together without having everything explained to them. This is how I’d say that in Thestralla: Magra do mitri azu. Kadelu. Word for word, I morning towards-store went. Bought.”

Summer Dawn gave her a look, then gave a bit of a rueful laugh. “Wow, that is different. But it sounds really interesting,” she said earnestly. “If you don’t mind teaching me, I’d like to learn.”

“Like I said, it will give me something do when I’m not sleeping,” she said evenly.

And she started immediately. Summer Dawn was a bit surprised, but she settled quickly and eagerly into the lesson, learning the most basic of Thestralla words and phrases, and passing a good couple of hours. But the lesson ended nearly as abruptly as it began when Moonshade decided she needed to sleep, and Summer Dawn retreated to a discreet distance so she could do so without being bothered. She tried her hardest to stay awake as long as she could, because she wanted to sleep when Starjumper was sleeping so it maximized the time they could spend together, so she spent the rest of the time she was awake sitting by the mesh window facing the side, not the front, looking through it and watching the forests south of the Foal Mountains go by in the moonlight below. The air was crisp and cold, but the heatstone she wore made it feel almost delightful, a constant steady breeze blowing through the bag to circulate air, and the late hours, the constant pleasant breeze, and the rhythmic motion of the bag as Starjumper flew was a combination that caused her to drift off to sleep fairly quickly.

It was the sudden jarring that startled her awake.

She snapped her head up and saw through the mesh that they were on the ground, that Starjumper had landed, and he had landed on what looked like a road. He turned a little, and that movement let her see the city of Manehattan on the far side of a bridge, and that was enough for her to know where they were. The road led to Baltimare, running along the coast, and that bridge was known as the Ten Span due to the ten heavy support arches that ran underneath the deck, crossing an ocean inlet that separated Manehattan from the mainland. Half of Manehattan was actually an island just off the coast.

It was time for her to do her thing. Moonshade was awake and standing, looking in her direction, and she stepped up to her and looked up, her horn flaring with magic. She opened the flap above, feeling the heavy drain on her using her magic in a shrunken state, then Moonshade flew out of the bag carrying her, a hoof on the back of her armor. When they were on the ground, she reversed the shrink spell, and Starjumper went from a titan that loomed over them to being normal sized in a shimmer of magic.

“Star, how do you feel?” Summer Dawn asked, stepping up to him.

“A little tired, but otherwise alright,” he replied. “It’s about ten minutes until dawn. Did you two sleep well?”

“Yes. The inside is actually pretty comfortable,” Moonshade answered. “Go ahead and take off the main pack. I’m ready to take over.”

He gave a single nod, and Summer Dawn did the honors for him. She unbuckled the pack for him with her magic and lifted it off his back, then she floated it over Moonshade’s back. She opened her wings and held them low and straight out from her sides, then gave Summer Dawn a single nod. She set the pack down on her back very carefully, making sure not to foul up her wings, then she buckled the straps both under her belly and around her chest. “Is it seated right?” Summer Dawn asked.

Moonshade nodded as she tentatively flapped her wings a few times, then held them in a raised posture. She couldn’t fold her wings with the pack on, but the pack wouldn’t interfere with her ability to fly. “I’m good,” she said aloud. “And I can reach the Stratus Barrel.”

“We’re here, so we need to decide if we’re staying long enough to shop,” Starjumper declared. “Did you think of anything we may need on the flight over that we don’t already have?”

“No,” Moonshade answered. “Your father did a good job packing everything we may need. There was even a blanket and pillow in the tent inside the bag.”

“There is one thing we could get,” Summer Dawn suggested. “A filling breakfast that’s not out of our packs. There are quite a few bakeries and diners in Manehattan that are open right now, and we don’t have to stay and eat unless Moonshade wants to. We can buy what we want and take it with us.”

“That’s not a bad idea, actually,” Moonshade said after a moment. “A hot, filling meal before a long flight makes the journey easier. And we have time.”

“It’ll be our only real chance for days,” Starjumper agreed. “We won’t see land again until Thursday, let alone a restaurant.”

“Cool. I know the perfect diner, I’ve eaten there before when my family visited Manehattan,” Summer Dawn offered. “They have great food, and they never close. We can get in and get a booth before the morning rush.”

“We can go after I change,” Starjumper said.

After he traded his wings for his horn, Summer Dawn led them confidently over the bridge and into Manehattan. She’d been to the city many times before, mainly to catch shows on Bridleway during the season, so she knew the city very well. She led them unerringly to a large, well-appointed diner not far from Bridleway that already had nearly half its booths and tables filled with early risers, which let them get in and get a booth without waiting. Summer Dawn was a bit surprised at how much food Moonshade ordered, enough for three ponies, more than Summer Dawn could even eat. Starjumper ordered quite a big breakfast for himself, no doubt famished after flying all night with little food or water, and it made her feel good about herself that both of them liked her idea. It made her feel like she wasn’t a fifth wheel on this journey.

Moonshade ordered enough for three ponies, and she ate all of it. Every bit of it. Summer Dawn almost stared in shock as the thestral just continued to eat and eat and eat and eat, even drank three cups of coffee and a large cup of orange juice. Seriously, where did all that food go? Moonshade was a thestral, so she was pretty big for a mare, kinda like Nightsong, but not even a pony as big as Starjumper’s brother could eat that much and still move afterward! Yet she cleaned every single plate and all but hopped out of the booth, then flagged down the waitress and ordered even more, to be boxed up to go! She gave Starjumper a nearly stunned look, but he just shrugged. “Soldiers eat a lot,” was his only explanation.

“A soldier never knows when or where they’ll get their next hot meal, so we enjoy it when we get it,” Moonshade agreed with a slight smile. “And we work far too much to get fat, no matter how much we eat.”

After that little adventure, including bringing along enough donuts and pastries to last them the entire day, they moved to a rooftop so they had plenty of room and a little privacy, and Starjumper did the honors. The entire world seemed to grow into a giant sized version of itself as he used his magic to shrink himself and Summer Dawn, then he picked both of them up with his magic and floated them up to the top of the saddlebag. Moonshade looked down at them, her eyes steady. “I’ll stop around noon for lunch,” she said, her voice deep and booming and barely understandable to her in the shrunken state. Starjumper gave her a single nod, then they dropped down into the saddlebag.

She felt Moonshade take off from the roof, and she trotted over to look out of the mesh. They left Manehattan behind in moments, and there was nothing but endless blue sky and blue sea extending to the horizon.

They were on their way. They were leaving Equestria, and they were truly on their way.

She wasn’t sure how she was supposed to feel, but she knew that she felt…excited. And nervous. And maybe a little scared. This was an adventure, a real, honest to Celestia adventure. They were leaving Equestria on a mission, a very serious mission to try to save the Nightlands and the thestrals from their own queen, who had devised an insane plan to expand her power that would end with her own death and the rise of a tyrant of legendary proportions, a pony that was the very epitome of evil. A master of dark magic, a magic that was fueled by pain, suffering, and misery and could only inflict harm, Sombra had been so powerful that he had made the entire Crystal Empire vanish for a thousand years. And if they didn’t stop them from bringing Sombra back, it would trigger a war that might spread across the entire world. With the thestrals under his complete control, and if Moonshade was any indication of a typical thestral soldier, Sombra may very well have a military force that could threaten the entire eastern kingdoms…and then Equestria.

Starjumper stepped up beside her and looked down through the mesh. She couldn’t resist leaning against him, pushing her muzzle up under his chin. “I never thought this day would come,” he said quietly.

“What do you mean?”

“I never thought I’d leave Equestria,” he answered, looking past her and down at the water below. “I knew what it meant, that it may start a war with the Nightlands. And now here I am with a thestral soldier, going to save the ones that have tried to kill me my entire life. What a world,” he said dryly.

“Well, you have a good reason,” she smiled up at him. “What do you think it’ll be like? Maretonia, and Unicornia, and the Nightlands?”

“Maretonia looks so much like Equestria you may not notice the difference,” he replied. “Dad’s been there, he described it. They use the same architecture, speak Ponish, and they’re actually Equestrian ponies, they just moved there a long time ago and established a new country. Unicornia, that will look a lot different. Their architecture is actually more pegasus than pony, with lots of marble and crystal and columns and sweeping arches and whatnot. Dad said that Crystallos is like a miniature Crystal Empire, they've put crystal cladding on many of their larger buildings to make them, I dunno, more grand I guess. Dad said they just look gaudy. And the unicorns there look more like my family than yours. Tall, stocky, physically imposing, which I guess isn’t a big surprise since we know that they’re related to the thestrals. Dad passed through Unicornia on his way to the Nightlands on the trip where he met my mother, he said it was a the most beautiful place he never wanted to visit again.”

“Wow, really? Why?”

“They were very suspicious and unfriendly,” he answered. “They think everypony that comes into their kingdom is a thestral spy, and Dad said that they’re seriously stuck up and arrogant. We won’t be there long. Moonshade won’t be welcome there, and they’ll treat us like enemies because we’re with her. We’ll deliver the Princess’ letter to the palace, then leave.”

“It’s too bad we can’t stay after we finish,” she said. “I’ve always wanted to go to Saddle Arabia, and if I remember right, it’s just on the other side of the mountains.”

“Much further south, but more or less, yeah,” Starjumper nodded. “Dad went there once too, buying Saddle Arabian carpets. He said that they’re very friendly there, but he had a lot of trouble due to the language barrier. They don’t speak Ponish, so he had trouble talking to many of the merchants.”

“I didn’t know they didn’t speak Ponish. By the way, Moonshade taught me some Thestralla last night. She said it’d be a good idea if I could understand at least a little bit, for when we get into the Nightlands.”

He looked down at her, a smile showing one of his fangs. “And what did you learn?”

“That Thestralla is hard,” she admitted. “It’s so different from Ponish, in ways I didn’t think a language could be different! I never once in my life thought a language would have an adjective come after the noun!”

“A language is a reflection of the creature that created it,” he told her. “The way they think, they way they do things. What did learning some Thestralla teach you about the thestrals?”

She gave him a surprised look, then looked out the mesh and thought for several moments. “That…they say much more than words do,” she said uncertainly. “Thestralla is a language of…well, it’s a language of implication You don’t need to say everything because you know the listener will fill in the gaps on her own. You say just enough to build a frame, and the listener fills it in. And Moonshade is something like that, too. She doesn’t say much, but there’s always more behind what she says. But…it’s also a direct language, which is kinda a paradox,” she said hesitantly, trying to find the right word. “It’s not flowery or prosaic or poetic. It’s minimalistic, efficient. You say what you mean, and mean what you say, in as few words as possible. Moonshade is like that, too. She’s blunt and efficient. And so is the language she speaks.”

“Well reasoned,” he said with an approving nod, which made her beam. “And what does that tell you of Thestralla and thestral culture?”

“That I won’t truly understand Thestralla until I understand the thestrals. Much of what they don’t say, what they leave unspoken, is tied up in their culture and society, so I won’t be able to fill in the gaps until I understand where the thestral is coming from. I don’t have that common knowledge they use as a basis to leave something unspoken. It’s not a language you can learn just by learning words and rules. You need to learn the essence of what it means to be a thestral to truly understand it.”

“Very good, Summer,” he said with a proud look. “And because you do see that, you’ll be able to learn Thestralla much more easily than other ponies.”

“Aww, thanks, Star.”

“What did you think of Moonshade, having your first chance to talk to her with it just being you two?”

“She’s a little intimidating, and she doesn't talk much, but she’s also very smart. I like her.”

“Do you trust her?”

“Yes,” she answered after thinking a moment. “She’ll be there if we need her, and she’ll trust that we’ll be there if she needs us.”

“You’re right about that,” he said, then he gave a wide yawn. “Now I hope you don’t mind, but I need to get some sleep.”

“I tried to stay up so I could sleep at the same time as you, so we’d have as much time together and awake as we could,” she told him. “I was going to have you teach me about magic this afternoon, but I think I’d rather you teach more Thestralla.”

“I’d be happy to,” he said with a slight smile. He turned and went back to the little fake camp with its heatstone “fire” and tents set up around it, and instead of going into a tent, he instead laid down by the heatstone and closed his eyes. She watched him for a moment, watched as his breathing slowed and he drifted off to sleep fairly quickly, then left the mesh window and walked over to him. She laid down on her belly beside him, her side touching his, then settled her head between her hooves and closed her eyes.

And fell asleep within moments.

A Thousand Tiny Stars

This wasn’t just new to Summer Dawn.

Landing on the cloud released from the Stratus Barrel, Starjumper flapped his wings a couple of times before folding them. He’d never been out over the ocean before, and flying over it was a deceptively confusing challenge to him. There were no landmarks out here, nothing under him but water, and all he had to guide him were the stars, a map, and a compass. It was amazingly clear out here, no other clouds in the sky, the stars a brilliant curtain of twinkling lights laid over the night sky, the waves on the water below reflecting the light back up in a shimmering dance of ghostly light, and when he looked up he had the feeling that he could see all the way to the end of the sky. The air was still, cold, and biting, but the heatstone pressed against his chest made him take no notice of it as Summer Dawn and Moonshade exited the carrying pack, landed on the cloud, and then Summer Dawn returned them to their normal size with her magic.

This was a planned stop, giving Starjumper a chance to eat, rest, and make sure he was on the right course. But what he hadn’t planned was that both of them would still be awake…well, Moonshade anyway. Summer Dawn was trying to stay awake so she could sleep at the same time he did, to maximize the time they could spend together when he wasn’t flying. Moonshade had flown all day, and he was honestly surprised that she wasn’t sleeping.

She’d flown them a long way that first day, getting them much further than he expected, and at the pace they were going, they were going to reach the coast of Maretonia in two days, tomorrow night. And by Luna’s grace, he was bound and determined to fly just as far as she did. He wasn’t about to let her hold that over him.

“You need to sleep, Moonshade,” he told her as he partially opened his wings and sat down on the cloud, allowing Summer Dawn to pull a small loaf of honeyed spice bread from her pack and offer it to him.

“I slept a bit after we switched,” she said. “And I’ll go back to sleep when we’re moving again. How far are we?”

“As near as I can tell, about three hundred miles from where we switched,” he answered. “It’s hard to tell how fast I’m going when there are no landmarks.”

“You should be able to tell by how much you’re exerting yourself,” she told him professionally. “I can fly with a blindfold on and tell you exactly how far I flew with nothing but a clock. Distance is a matter of speed over time. If I know the time, I can tell you the distance because I know how fast I can fly.”

“I’m not trained as much as you are,” he admitted.

“Still, if you’re right about the distance, you’re making pretty good time,” she told him as she pulled a waterskin from her pack, then took a long swallow. “We might reach Maretonia late tomorrow night or the morning after.”

“That’s what I’m hoping,” he nodded, then took a fairly large bite of the honeyed spice bread. It was an old recipe that was a staple for thestral soldiers, for the bread was filling and packed with energy.

“Look at that,” Summer Dawn said, looking down over the edge of the cloud. “It’s almost like it goes on forever.”

“I know. I’d never seen the sea until I was sent to Equestria,” Moonshade said. “I didn’t think that much water could exist in the whole world…and that’s just one sea. The maps say there’s two others.”

“I’ve seen it from the coast, but never from out here, or from so far up,” she elaborated. “Have you, Star?”

“From the beach yes, but not like this,” he replied. “I’ve never been out over the water before, or in it. I wasn’t sure if being in the water would count as leaving Equestria.”

“Really?”

He nodded. “When I learned to fly, that was the first thing my mother taught me, to never fly over the ocean. She didn’t tell me why at first,” he said musingly as he looked down at the ocean below. “Baltimare is a coastal town, so I’d fly up to the old lighthouse and sit up there and look out over the water, wondering what was on the other side. But then I learned about the treaty,” he said distantly. “And I knew I’d never be able to go. I don’t think I ever went to the lighthouse again after that. It was like…it had no meaning anymore.” He blinked, and then felt a bit sheepish and embarrassed because Moonshade had heard him. He felt comfortable telling Summer Dawn those kinds of things, but Moonshade…not so much.

“You really took the treaty seriously,” Moonshade said in a quiet, direct voice.

“I was told what would happen if I broke it, and to make sure I understood the full gravity of what it meant, Mother was not very kind or gentle about how she explained it. And for a foal, that was very frightening,” he answered. “When I was a colt, I had nightmares that I started a war just because I put one hoof in the ocean.”

He could see the compassion shimmering in Summer Dawn’s eyes, and that made him feel even more sheepish for some reason.

“How are the Thestralla lessons going?” he asked, changing the subject.

“I learned some new phrases,” she replied proudly. “But I don’t quite get the grammar behind them.”

“Thestralla is about as different from Ponish as a language can get,” he told her supportively. “And ponies seem to have a particularly tough time learning it. It took Dad years to learn it.”

“Ponies think too rigidly,” Moonshade said calmly. “And they want everything spelled out for them. Thestralla isn’t like that.”

“What does how I think have to do with speaking Thestralla?” Summer Dawn asked.

“To speak a language, you have to be able to think in that language,” she replied. “Ponish is rigid. It has tons of rules, it has an unyielding structure. It’s very formal,” she stressed. “That means ponies think that way, and that’s gonna make it hard for them to think in Thestralla. Most ponies that learn Thestralla can’t wrap their heads around the idea that you don’t have to say everything to get your point across. They always want to elaborate, fill in, and that’s not how native speakers do it. It’s much easier for a pony like me to adopt your rules than it is for a unicorn who knows nothing but those rules to suddenly be free of them. They can’t seem to function without them.”

He could see the challenge in Summer Dawn’s eyes, and it nearly made him chuckle. “She’s right about that,” he affirmed. “Mom made sure to teach us Thestralla starting from the cradle, where Dad still hadn’t mastered the language until well after Songbird was born. Like I said, it took him years to learn it. And I mean years.”

“Foals learn languages much easier than adults,” Moonshade said, to which Starjumper nodded in agreement.

“Well, I’m going to prove both of you wrong,” Summer Dawn declared. “I’m going to learn Thestralla, and it’s not going to take me years.”

“If you were some other unicorn, I’d laugh at that statement,” Moonshade told her. “But you’re not like most unicorns, little slip. You just might be able to do it.”

“What she means is, you’re a very adaptable and creative pony, Summer. I saw it in you when I taught you magic. You see what other ponies miss, you’re able to change your viewpoint to see things from a different direction when the situation demands it. That’s going to help you learn Thestralla, because you can free yourself from the rules that restrain most other native Ponish speakers.”

“Yup.”

She almost beamed at them. “Well, then, I’ll do my best not to disappoint either of you,” she said modestly.

“Between the two of us, she should be able to understand the most important words and phrases by the time we get to the Nightlands,” Starjumper noted to Moonshade.

“Yup. Maybe even more than that.”

After the meal, he was back on the wing with the mares in the carry pack, leaving him more or less alone with his thoughts. He’d always done his best thinking while flying, because there were no real distractions so long as he wasn’t doing anything like stunt flying, solitude, and the wind in his face and feel of the air rushing over his wings had always had a calming effect on him. There really that much to think about, given how well prepared they were for this trip, and that caused him to spend most of the night not thinking about the mission, or the potential dangers ahead of them, but of Summer Dawn. She filled his thoughts, both memories of her and thoughts of the future, and of course, the biggest thing he thought about wasn’t her magic, or her training, but how the hay he was going to court a girl that was nothing like him and had everything. They were true opposites. He was a brooding, guarded, unfriendly stallion with a dark past and carrying a whole lot of baggage, and she was…well, perfect. Smart, kind, gentle, funny, powerful, resourceful, courageous, determined, rich—Luna was she rich—and beautiful beyond compare. She was the mare every stallion hoped to find someday, and he still couldn’t believe that she had fallen in love with him.

A Lykan. The antithesis of almost everything she was.

Truly, opposites did seem to attract.

Most of the night was filled with thoughts of how his life was going to change with her in it, once they got back home. There was no way he was leaving Canterlot now, so he had to find a way to make a life for himself in a town where everypony more or less hated him. It was going to be hard. It was going to be emotionally taxing for him. But to be near Summer Dawn, it would all be worth it. He’d endure their cold stares and the whispering behind their hooves and the flat hostility and the fear just to see Summer Dawn smile. She was what mattered, and the tribulations he would endure living in Canterlot were nothing so long as she looked at him with love in her eyes. She was the only pony in Canterlot that mattered to him. She was the only pony in Canterlot he would fight to protect. And so long as she was happy, then he was happy.

He supposed he could do what he was doing now. He did like to teach, and Fancy Pants and Fleur de Lis showed him that he enjoyed teaching ponies other than Summer Dawn. Most of his time would be devoted to her, teaching her everything he knew, but when they reached that point, when she went beyond him in both learning and ability, he could tutor other ponies to support himself…and take lessons from her.

The time would come, and come sooner than she believed, when he would be her student. And rather than be jealous, or bitter, he would be so incredibly proud of her, proud to see her achieve her full potential and know that he had a part to play in it.

Luna’s moon, it was so strange, being in love. How his entire thought process had changed, how the center of his life had shifted dramatically. He was no longer the center of his own universe, she was, and he was still coming to grips with that revelation. But he liked it. Luna’s eternal grace, but did he like it.

He had never felt so…happy.

It was a bit of an amusing conundrum for them when they reached the coast of Maretonia, because they arrived almost exactly at dawn, after almost exactly three days over the vast eastern sea. They’d left from Manehattan at dawn three days ago, and they reached the peninsula that was the closest point of land to Manehattan in the Eastern Kingdoms a shade under three days later. Starjumper was unsure if he was going to make the coast before sunrise when he first spotted it, making him a bit indecisive as to if he needed to use the Stratus Barrel, but putting on some extra speed got him on the ground a good ten minutes before the sun rose, giving the mares time to unshrink and join him in their first steps on land since leaving Equestria. The soil here was no different from the soil back in Equestria, the grass under his hooves the same color, the same smell, the same appearance, but this land felt different to him, as if he knew he was in Equestria no longer. He wasn’t sure why he felt like that, but he did. It had to be the fact that there was no sense of peace and safety and security here. This was a land where there were no rules that protected him from the thestrals, a land he did not know. He had no hiding spots here, no hidden cubbies or caves in which to take shelter. He was vulnerable here, and that knowledge made this place seem vaguely…sinister.

It certainly didn’t look like an alien landscape. The trees in the distance were the same as the trees back home. The grass looked the same, smelled the same, as did the sea air and the sound of waves crashing on the rocks not far away. This grassy seaside plain could be the land north of Baltimare, heading towards Fillydelphia, and the tidy cottage well inland was built the in the same style as houses back home. It wouldn’t look out of place anywhere in Baltimare or out among the small farming villages inland of the city.

They’d planned to take an extended break once reaching land, so Starjumper allowed Summer Dawn to remove the pack saddle, then she opened it and started taking out the supplies they’d need to make a campfire and cook a hearty breakfast. Starjumper changed while they set up the campfire to cook a filling, hearty breakfast to celebrate reaching the shoreline, and once he had his horn, he helped her as Moonshade laid on her belly sedately beside the just-lit fire. “How far is to Marette from here?” Summer Dawn asked.

“About three quarters of a day,” Moonshade answered. “We’ll arrive late in the afternoon. We’ll deliver the Princess’ message, write that letter, and by then it should be after sunset and Starjumper can fly the next leg.”

“Sounds good to me,” Starjumper noted as he set a pan on the rack set over the fire, coated it in sunflower oil, then poured blackcap batter into it for blackcap flapjacks. “From what I remember of the map, I should reach Crystallon right around dawn as long as I don’t dawdle.”

She nodded up at him. “It’d be best if you land short of it and let yourself change. They’ll be nicer to you if you’re a unicorn…though not by much. That’s where we slow down a whole lot so we can reach the checkpoints I’ve chosen at certain times over the night when I think we have the best chance to get through without being spotted. Once we reach the final layover, we wait for sunrise, then execute the plan.”

“You’re sure you can get in?”

“Positive,” she assured him. “If we haven’t been spotted, I can just walk in. If we have, I know another way in. And if the little slip is willing to help, I know yet another way in that’s much faster.”

“I’ll do whatever you need me to do, Moonshade,” Summer Dawn assured her. “What do you need?”

“There’s a drainage pipe that runs from the side of the cliff under the castle into the lower levels,” she replied. “It’s far too small for the castle guards to defend it. If you can shrink us down, we can walk up the pipe. You unshrink me when we get to the other side and teleport back to the cave. I can bypass most of the guards that way.”

“That’s a great idea. Of course I’ll help,” Summer Dawn told her animatedly.

“How do you know where it lets out?” Starjumper asked.

“Because I used to send little pieces of wood down the pipe and try to find them on the rocks at the bottom of the cliff when I was a filly,” she answered. “The pipe opens up in a hallway near the stairs that lead down to where the Night Stone is kept. It’s part of the old dungeon. Once I’m out of the pipe, I can be in the chamber in five minutes, and get there without being seen. The guards don’t patrol those stairs or the hallway leading to the chamber.”

“That may be your best way in period,” Starjumper mused. “There’s always the chance that if you just walk in, the guards may slow you down just asking you questions about how you escaped and got back.”

She considered that for a second, then nodded. “I think you’re right. We’ll do it that way,” she agreed.

After a hot, filling meal, Starjumper and Summer Dawn shrunk down and let Moonshade carry them as she flew inland, arrow-straight for the capitol of Maretonia, Marette. Summer Dawn settled in with him and they both slept through the morning and early afternoon, sleeping beside the mesh window so the warm, dry air flowed over them, and they woke up when Moonshade gave a loud call and jostled the bag enough to rouse them. They were high over the land, a series of small hamlets under them with neat and orderly farm fields surrounding the villages, but a large city was in the distance, nestled in a very shallow U-shaped valley with rolling foothills behind it, and a river flowing in front of the city with three different large bridges spanning it, where the roads that anchored the foot of each bridge trailed off into the distance.

Though he had never seen it before, this had to be the city of Marette, the largest city in Maretonia and the home of the Duke and Duchess that ruled this land.

“So many farms,” Summer Dawn said. “I’ve never seen so many farms.”

“I guess everypony wants to live close to the city,” Starjumper guessed. “Besides, look at those roads. Most of the major roads in Maretonia must lead here, so this would be the best place to build a farm or a business.”

“No train tracks,” she noticed.

“Yeah, you’re right. I guess they haven’t built them over here,” he agreed as he turned and looked out the side mesh.

Moonshade decided to land directly in the city, nearly startling a mare and her foal out of their hooves as she dropped down and flared her wings just before hitting the cobblestones of the street. The buildings were built very close together, Starjumper noticed, even closer together than they were in Canterlot, and the streets here weren’t as wide as in Canterlot. That turned the streets into shallow canyons that felt constricting. Moonshade opened the flap, and Starjumper lifted him and Summer Dawn out of the pack and reversed the shrink spell before they even reached the street, eliciting several startled gasps from the onlookers who had been attracted by Moonshade’s sudden arrival. “You could have at least landed close to the palace,” Starjumper accused.

“I’ve been here before. I got into trouble for doing that the last time,” she answered.

“Fair enough. You want me to take the pack?”

“Sure, if you’re offering.”

Starjumper unbuckled it and lifted it off her back using magic, then settled it over his own back. He would have rather shrunk it down, but he couldn’t do that with it holding items that were already shrunk; trying to shrink a bag holding a shrunken item caused both spells to go crazy, with unpredictable and potentially dangerous results. Once he had it buckled and the straps adjusted for his chest and back, they started down the long, straight street that ended in a plaza in front of the Duke’s palace. The castle was visible at the end of the canyon formed by the street and buildings, a tall, imposing structure behind an iron fence and built of red granite, which made the spires of the building look almost like they were covered in shimmering blood in the afternoon sunlight.

“They don’t seem to like us very much,” Summer Dawn whispered to Starjumper as they walked down the street. She was right, many of the stares sent in their direction were suspicious, and ponies were giving them a wide berth. Starjumper realized as he looked down the street that it was because they were the only two unicorns and only thestral on the street. Every other pony was an earth pony.

“They’re always like this,” Moonshade growled quietly. “Maretonians aren’t very friendly, but they’re polite.”

They walked down the street and to the large plaza in front of the red granite palace, which had huge, grand windows over and around the grand entry staircase, two staircases that faced each other at the base, then curled up and around to face each other again at the top, where a large portico stood before the massive entry doors. There was a grand balcony at the top of the columns around the edge of the platform, which was probably where the Duke publicly addressed his subjects.

“Snazzy,” Starjumper said evenly as they approached the giant double gate through the tall, imposing iron fence, which had eight uniformed ponies standing around it. Two in front, one to each side, two within the fenceline, and four behind it. They were obviously the guards.

“It is impressive,” Summer Dawn agreed. “But is it me, or does that red granite make the palace look…a little scary?”

“It’s called the Blood Palace for a reason,” Moonshade told them. “Though that old name refers more to the Dukes of the past than the building itself. The old Dukes were very…harsh,” she said delicately.

Summer Dawn gave her a look around Starjumper.

“There’s supposed to be a dungeon under the palace big enough to hold the entire population of the city. And below that, there are supposed to be catacombs holdings lots and lots of bones. They dug out the catacombs so they didn’t have to take the bodies very far,” she noted, which made Summer Dawn blanch a little.

“Moonshade, stop that,” Starjumper said.

“Stop what? Are you messing with me, Moonshade?” Summer Dawn challenged.

“Maybe,” she replied in a deadpan voice that made Starjumper chuckle. “It’s called the Blood Palace because of an old story about the First Duke of Maretonia. The palace was supposedly originally white, but it turned red after the First Duke was murdered by his son in a plot to take the throne from him. The palace turned red, and the ghost of the Duke haunted his son until he threw himself off that tower right there,” she said, pointing at the highest of the towers, on the left side of the grand building. “But it stayed red after he died. It’s said that the ghost of the First Duke still walks the halls, and his presence keeps the Dukes of Maretonia honest, kind, and just.”

“Well, that story’s not much better than the dungeon,” Summer Dawn noted sourly. “Is that the real story, Star?”

“Yes,” he nodded as they neared the gates. “A little embellished, though.”

“A good story needs a little embellishment, or it’s a boring story,” Moonshade declared. “And soldiers love to tell stories around the campfire.”

When they reached the gates, the two ponies out front stepped in front of them. “Halt! State your business!” the taller of the two uniformed earth ponies barked.

“We’re carrying a message from Equestria,” Starjumper answered. “Princess Celestia told us to deliver it to the palace. Moonshade,” he prompted, looking over at her.

“Really? A thestral, a Theradale unicorn, and a Magestrian unicorn are from Equestria?” he challenged suspiciously.

“So what if I’m a Theradale?” Starjumper challenged. “You think Equestria doesn’t have Theradale unicorns? Or Magestrians?”

“Star,” Summer Dawn cut him off, holding up a hoof in front of him, then she stepped forward. “Please excuse my companion, he’s not exactly used to being a messenger,” she said in a warm, friendly voice. “We’ve just arrived from Equestria on other business, and Princess Celestia sent a letter along with us to be delivered to the Duke of Maretonia,” she explained with a gentle expression. “We’re not taking back a reply, but we were told to write a letter back to her Highness to be left with you to inform her that her letter was delivered. If you would, my good stallion, might we deliver the message to the chamberlain and be allowed the opportunity to write the letter to her Highness that our message was delivered?”

The guard looked far less hostile, even giving Summer Dawn a slight smile. “May I see the letter?” he asked.

“Of course. You’ll see that it bears the Royal Seal of Equestria,” she replied, looking back to Moonshade. “Moonshade, could you please?” She dug into her saddlebag with a hoof, then produced both of the letters, each stuck to her hoof. Summer Dawn took command of them with her magic, then after reading the outside, put the one for Unicornia back in Moonshade’s saddlebag. She then presented it to the guard, with the wax seal on the back facing him to show it to him. After he took a moment to inspect the seal, she turned the letter around so he could see the name on the front.

“That is the Royal Seal of Equestria,” the second guard confirmed. “It looks authentic.”

“I agree. If you would, follow me,” the taller of them declared. “The palace chamberlain will be summoned to take custody of the letter.”

“Thank you, good stallion,” Summer Dawn said smoothly, bobbing her head a bit as the two guards turned towards the palace. She floated the letter to her own saddlebag and slid it inside.

“Well done, little slip,” Moonshade whispered as they started after the pair. Two other guards advanced to take their places at the gate after they entered the grounds.

“Guess you don’t think me being a society pony is a bad thing now, hey Star?” she replied with a smile.

He gave her a look that made her giggle despite herself.

“Pardon me, my good stallion,” she said in a loud voice, “but may I ask a question?”

“Of course, madam.”

“Why did you call me Magestrian?”

“That’s what you are,” he replied. “Your long legs, lean body, muzzle and eye shape, they mark you as a Magestrian unicorn. We don’t see them very often here in Maretonia. We didn’t think they were native to Equestria.”

“Huh, in Equestria, a unicorn is simply a unicorn. I had no idea that we had our own tribes.”

“It sounds like your ancestors moved to Equestria long ago, and your family forgot where they came from,” the other guard ventured.

“That’s possible,” Summer Dawn acceded. “How many tribes of unicorns are there?”

“There are four,” Moonshade said. “The Theradales of Unicornia and eastern Maretonia, who are all tall and burly like earth ponies, which is Starjumper’s heritage. There’s absolutely no doubt that Starjumper’s father is a Theradale. There’s the Magestrians from the realm of Magestra, not far from Saddle Arabia, who do look like you do. There’s the Western unicorns, which are the unicorns of Equestria, and then the Kirin, who are long-legged and lean like Magestrians, but are taller and have curved horns. You do look Magestrian,” she agreed.

“Huh, you learn something new every day,” Summer Dawn mused aloud. “There are unicorns living in Maretonia? Why haven’t I seen any?”

“The unicorns live along the eastern border of the realm, and they keep to themselves,” one of the guards said, a bit stiffly. “They don’t like to mingle with earth ponies. But, they are loyal citizens of the realm,” he said begrudgingly. “When the realm needs the services of their magic, they answer the call.”

“Yeah, that sounds like most unicorns on this side of the sea,” Starjumper said darkly.

“Not so. The Magestrians are very friendly, and their cities and towns are quite a sight to see. They shape them out of living trees with magic, so every home and shop is a living work of art.”

“Wow, I wish we had time to go see Magestra,” Summer Dawn said, but a warning look from Starjumper quelled any continuation of that line of thought.

They were led through the grand doors and into a giant entry hall with a tiled floor in red and black and several huge, grand crystal chandeliers hanging between the buttresses along the arched chamber, the hanging pieces of crystal glowing with soft, white magical light to illuminate the hall. One of the guards escorting them struck a gong set near the entry doors, then they all stopped not far from the doors. A moment later, a tall, portly earth pony stallion wearing an elaborate coat appeared from a side door and approached. “Master Chamberlain, these ponies are carrying a letter from the Princess Celestia of Equestria for the Duke,” one of the guards explained.

“May I see the missive?” the pony asked in a strong, slightly gravelly voice, as if speaking loudly most of his life had damaged his voice. Summer Dawn removed the letter from her saddlebag and floated it over to him, holding it suspended in midair and allowing him to examine it. He used his hoof to turn the letter around, then gave the seal a long look. “The seal is authentic,” he nodded. “Pray tell, what orders were you given concerning this letter, madam?”

“Only to deliver it to the Duke of Maretonia, your Excellency,” Summer Dawn answered smoothly. “I believe that you delivering it to him for us would complete our task. But we were charged to write a letter back to her Highness informing her the letter was delivered and leave it with you to be sent back to Equestria.”

“I’m afraid the Duke is quite busy today and would be unable to see you,” the chamberlain warned. “I can add it to his morning paperwork, and he’ll read the letter first thing in the morning.”

“That is more than satisfactory, your Excellency,” Summer Dawn told him in a calm tone. “Our task was to deliver the letter. We were not told to wait for a reply, so an audience with his Grace is not necessary.”

“Very good, madam. If you would follow me please, I’ll show you to an antechamber where you can pen your letter, and I’ll have it sent off with some other missives bound for Canterlot.”

“Thank you, your Excellency, you are most kind,” Summer Dawn said smoothly.

The chamberlain led them to a small room not far from the entry hall that held only a writing desk, parchment, and a quill and ink pot. There were some tapestries on the walls but no windows, so the room was a bit dark, dark enough for Summer Dawn to conjure a globe of light to help her see better before taking up the quill with her magic. “I think I’d better write the letter,” she told them.

“That’s fine with me, little slip. You seem to know how to talk to these fancy ponies, so you’ll know how to write a letter to Celestia.”

“I think it’s a good thing she came along even over her magic,” Starjumper mused, which made her grin at him.

“You’d have gotten us into a war with Maretonia,” she said with playful smugness in her voice.

“Hit them enough times to make them do what you want, that’s the motto of my family,” he replied, which made her giggle.

She barely took five minutes to pen the letter, which she then folded into an envelope-like shape and addressed to the Princess on the outside. She carried it in her magic as she nearly pranced past them and towards the door, where the chamberlain was standing outside waiting. “We’re finished, your Excellency,” she said, floating the letter over to him. “And our business here is concluded. With your permission, may we be escorted back to the gate?”

“Of course, madam,” he said with a smile as he took the letter in the crook of a hoof, then pushed it into the small satchel hanging from his side. “I’ll have this added to the papers being sent to Canterlot. It should be there in a few days.”

“You are most kind, your Excellency,” she told him with an approving nod.

The chamberlain himself escorted them back to the outer gate, and with a word of farewell, left them to their own devices in the plaza. “Well, that was quick and easy,” Moonshade noted. “We have a good two hours before sunset.”

“Let’s take this opportunity to have a meal we don’t have to cook ourselves,” Starjumper suggested. “And we’ll get underway after sunset.”

“Sounds good to me. We’ll easily make up the time flying on full bellies. That does always make a thestral want to fly faster.”

“I certainly won’t complain,” Summer Dawn agreed. “I’d love to sit at a table and eat something we didn’t take out of a saddlebag.”

They found a restaurant not far from the plaza that had lured in Moonshade with her keen sense of smell, and they decided to give it a try. That turned out to be a good decision. The restaurant didn’t have an indoor dining area, all the tables were set in a courtyard behind the main building with streamers of lights and colored ribbons running from umbrella to umbrella covering the tables and on posts around the outside edge of the dining area. The food was exceptional, and they got a whole lot of it for the price they paid. The waiter seemed a bit unsure of himself, serving two unicorns and a thestral, but he was kind and his advice about the dishes served in the restaurant was good.

They finished the meal a good half hour before sunset, and since they couldn’t leave until the moon was raised, they walked slowly out of the city along its largest, widest street and looked at the shops, homes, and ponies. There was nothing but earth ponies everywhere they looked, reminding him of Baltimare in some ways, but what was different here was that almost everypony wore some kind of clothing. From the minimalists that only wore stylish scarves to the truly fashion conscious ponies that were decked out in full suits or dresses, the only ponies on the street not wearing at least one article of clothing were them. For stallions, small, stylish vests over garments that went over the front legs, chest, and upper back seemed to be the most popular, and for mares, slender saddles with stylish hats…for that matter, Starjumper noted, every mare and filly on the street was wearing a hat except for Moonshade and Summer Dawn. The manes under those hats were also stylish, often styled to complement the hat, and long manes with tails and braids seemed to be popular. Much like Equestria, colts and stallions here wore their tails very short, which put Starjumper out of place, but he did notice that few fillies or mares had tails that were long enough to reach their back ankles, where in Equestria mares often had tails long enough to drag the ground. That also put all three of them very much out of place, since thestrals wore their tails extremely long so they could use them in conjunction with their clinging magic, and most Canterlot unicorns wore their tails very long because that was the current style. The tip of Summer Dawn’s tail was just a sliver off the ground, and it would drag the ground if she lowered it from its usual arched position, and both Starjumper’s and Moonshade’s tails did drag the ground.

It just went to show, not every society had the same taste in fashion.

They walked over the middle bridge just moments before sunset, and that gave Starjumper enough time to get a good distance away from the city and take off the pack in preparation of what was to come. Moonshade and Summer Dawn refilled some waterskins in the river as they waited, and when the sun set and the moon rose, they didn’t pay much attention as Starjumper changed. Once it was over, he flapped his wings a few times to get the last of the pain and buzzing out of them, then allowed Summer Dawn to tend his sides with a cloth, cleaning off the blood. “You two ready to go?” he asked as she cleaned his face with the towel, then she dunked it in the river and wrung it out, cleaning it, before putting it back in a pack. She then picked up the main pack saddle with her magic and set it back over his back, setting it down carefully so it didn’t foul his wings.

“As soon as the little slip shrinks us,” Moonshade answered as Summer Dawn buckled the pack for him.

“All done,” she declared, stepping over to Moonshade.

They were on their way moments later, and as Starjumper ascended higher and higher over the land east of Marette, he got a better view of it. He could see that the land was the same very gentle, rolling hills covered in forest that extended for dozens of miles, but at the horizon, illuminated by the silver light of the moon and visible to his eyes, were higher hills, the beginnings of the foothills that led up to the mountains. Those foothills would eventually become Unicornia, he remembered from the map, but from what he’d just learned in Marette, the hills that he could see were the domain of Maretonia’s resident population of unicorns. They were probably descendents of the unicorns of Unicornia, most likely migrated to the western foothills over time and found themselves in another country…or perhaps they were always there and the border of the country moved past them. Either way, he intended to be very high up by the time he got there, so he was all but invisible form the ground, so as not to attract any unwanted attention.

But barely half an hour after taking off from Marette, he realized that unwanted attention was exactly what they attracted. It was long his habit to check behind him as he flew from time to time, glancing back over his shoulder briefly every so often, and one of those cursory checks revealed to him a dozen dark shapes a good five miles behind him. Their size and the shape of their wings were unmistakable, they were thestrals, and the glint of the moonlight off metal told him that they were thestral soldiers. They were coming up behind him on the same line he’d flown leaving Marette, which meant that they were there, they had seen them, and none of them had noticed them.

Moonshade’s insistence that they wear armor at all times suddenly didn’t seem quite so paranoid.

“Moonshade, Summer Dawn,” he called loudly. “We have company behind us. Twelve thestrals in armor, about five miles back, and they’re gaining. I’m going to speed up and see if I can outrun them, but I doubt it. I’m weighed down with the pack saddle and they’re not.”

He surged forward with a powerful sweep of his oversized wings, and continued to accelerate, which caused the thestrals behind him to follow suit. He also nosed up and started to climb, because in an aerial fight, the pony with altitude had the advantage. He didn’t want them to get into a position where they could dive at him. There was a shimmer of light, and Moonshade was suddenly her full size again, first dropping under him and then pulling back up once she got her wings going. She looked back over her shoulder a moment, then looked over at him. “Soldiers,” she affirmed. “Keep climbing, they’re trained to get up and over a flyer so they can dive on you from behind.”

“Summer,” he called. “You think you can return to full size and not fall off my back?” She couldn’t answer him, but a moment later, she shimmered back to her full size straddling his back like a rider and almost immediately surrounded herself with an aura of her magic, steadying herself on his back, sitting on top of the saddle packs. “Alright, Summer, time to earn your keep,” he said. “Moonshade, get as close to me as you can. Summer, I want you to teleport us as far forward as you can.”

“But I don’t know my destination!” she protested.

“Use your eyes,” he told her. “Look as far forward as you can and focus on a spot, then teleport us to that spot. It’s the only way we’re going to outrun them,” he told her. “Moonshade, this is gonna be a rough ‘port, so be ready for it,” he warned. “Since she can’t get a clear view of her destination, we’re gonna get singed in transit.”

“I’ll take a little singing over fighting twelve soldiers,” Moonshade said calmly, getting directly over him, putting Summer Dawn between them. Her belly was nearly brushing Summer Dawn’s ears.

“Any time you’re ready, Summer,” he prompted.

Seconds later, she cast the spell. Starjumper felt the resistance and felt himself get a singed as they transited the teleport, then they returned to crisp winter air that soothed those minor burns as it rushed over them. Summer Dawn had teleported them in a straight line as far forward as she could see and hadn’t changed their orientation or their motion, which was the smartest way to do it. “That wasn’t so bad,” Moonshade said dismissively.

“For you,” Summer Dawn panted. “That took a lot out of me.”

“It’s a lot harder teleporting to an unfamiliar destination,” he affirmed. “But you got us here with only a little singe. Good job.”

“Thanks, Star,” she answered.

“Go ahead and shrink back down and get some rest,” Moonshade told her. “I’ll fly for a while to give Starjumper an extra pair of eyes.”

“Okay. Just let me know when you want to shrink again and rest.”

He felt her weight vanish off his back, and watched from the corner of his eye as she walked across his back and opened the flap of the saddlebag, then used magic to float down into it.

“How far did she get us?” Moonshade asked.

Starjumper looked back over his shoulder and took in the landmarks that were now behind him. “About twenty miles,” he replied. “Not bad at all given she was teleporting blind. That might be far enough for them to give up, especially once they realize that we can just teleport out of reach again if they keep chasing.”

“This does tell us that my mother knows we’re coming,” Moonshade said grimly. “She has soldiers out looking for us. We’d better be careful until we cross into Unicornia. Not even my mother is stupid enough to send soldiers over Unicornia.”

“You think so?”

“Thestral soldiers wouldn’t be this far west in Maretonia for any other reason,” she told him. “Especially not that many.”

“Well, that just means we do this the sneaky way,” Starjumper told her, to which she nodded.

They both kept a very close watch in every direction, not just behind them, as they continued just south of east, until enough time had passed that they both agreed that the thestrals behind them had broken off pursuit. Moonshade continued to fly along with him to keep watch, however. The low, gentle hills under them slowly and consistently got more and more rugged, and hardwood forest replaced the large groves breaking up the rolling grassland, until the land under them as an uninterrupted carpet of leafless hardwood trees with the occasional pine or cedar evergreen breaking up the monotony. Those occasional evergreen slowly became small clusters of trees, then stands, then they were half the trees under them, as the lowland maples and oaks were slowly replaced with evergreens, birch, elm, and ash trees, trees more common at higher altitudes. A multitude of small streams and rivers flowed down the rugged hills, flowing down the valleys of the hills and joining into larger and larger creeks, forming the headwaters of the river that flowed past Marette.

They flew without incident for half the night, until Starjumper landed in a very small meadow at the very top of a particularly tall hill for a quick meal and brief rest. Moonshade prowled the tiny meadow, her eyes on the sky as he ate. “You need to sleep, Moonshade,” he told her. “You have a lot of flying in front of you.”

“I don’t need more than a couple of hours,” she told him. “I’m a thestral soldier, Lykan, I’m used to going without sleep. You need a second set of eyes right now. I’ll get a quick nap just before dawn and be just fine for the day. We’ll hold over just inside the Nightlands at the first layover I have planned and get some proper sleep. It’s a fairly deep and well hidden cave where we can afford to relax a little.”

“Why not lay over in Crystallon?”

“Because we’re thestrals,” she replied bluntly. “We won’t be welcome there.”

“How soon will we reach the city?”

“If we stay at this speed, mid-morning,” she answered. “We’ll cross over into Unicornia right around sunrise. And that’s what we should be working towards,” she said as she stopped and turned to walk back the other way. “They won’t follow us into Unicornia.”

“Then at least your leg of the flight tomorrow will be relatively easy,” he mused.

“It’s just trading one form of danger for another,” she told him. “When I fly over Unicornia, it’ll be so high that their magic can’t reach me. And we’ll need the little slip to talk very fast once we land outside the gates of Crystallon, or spending a few years in their dungeon will be the least of our worries.”

“Then it sounds like we’d better step it up,” he said, finishing his oat cake and standing up. “I’ve rested enough. Let’s see how far into Unicornia I can get before sunrise.”

“Now you’re thinking like a thestral soldier,” she nodded.

Starjumper was quite proud of himself. About two hours before sunrise, Moonshade announced that they’d crossed the border into Unicornia, though it was hard to tell when one looked down. The land under them was even more rugged now, towering, steep-sided foothills with the shadows of the mountains in front of them, visible now at the edge of the horizon. But when one looked up, the border between Maretonia and Unicornia was very distinct. The clear skies over Maretonia gave way to a layer of clouds over Unicornia, which covered the land below like a blanket and kept things from getting too cold. The unicorns created them with magic, Moonshade had explained, and they were a nightly fixture during the winter moons. They would burn off like fog at sunrise to let the sun through, warming the land below them, and return just after sunset to trap that heat close to the ground to take the edge off the biting winter cold. At Moonshade’s direction, Starjumper ascended up and through the clouds, then he landed atop them once he burrowed his way through. Moonshade awoke Summer Dawn long enough to have her shrink down, then Starjumper continued to get as far into Unicornia as he could before sunrise.

The clouds under him hid him from the land below, but it also made it hard for him to get an idea of how fast he was going, or in which direction he was going. He had to rely on the stars for navigation, keeping himself in line to reach Crystallon, flying high enough over the cloud deck below so he could see a good distance in every direction. The cloud tops below him weren’t flat, they were almost as rugged as the land under them, hillsides of white formed by cumulus clouds forming valleys and ridges and plateaus, forcing Starjumper to fly well over the highest of them so he could maintain visibility, up high enough that the air around him would have been dangerously cold were it not for the heat stone he was wearing.

As the moon started creeping towards the western horizon behind him, Starjumper looked down to find a good place to land, looking for a flat plateau atop one of the clouds that would give him maximum visibility and allow him to eat before he changed. Moonshade said that the clouds burned off after sunrise like fog, so they had to be ready to move when the sun rose. He surveyed the cloudscape below him, searching for the optimum landing point, when he noticed a disturbance in the clouds directly under him as he flew over. He looked down and under him to see what it was that caught his eye, and that was when he saw a glint of metal, moving quickly just above the cloud deck, moving between two sloping cloud sides and darting in and out of sight.

Thestrals! In Unicornia!

“Moonshade, Summer, wake up! We have company!” he shouted as he banked sharply to the left, his eyes scanning the cloud deck under him. He saw several other tell-tale disturbances in the clouds, and from the look of it, they had flown towards him from the Nightlands and had gone low through the valleys between the cloud tops to keep him from seeing them until they were very close. And almost as soon as he called out, a sudden swarm of well over twenty thestrals erupted from the clouds on all sides under him, racing upwards towards him as fast as their wings would carry them. Too many to fight!

He did the only thing he could, he pulled out of his slow descent towards the cloud tops and started climbing, his large wings pulling him higher and higher into the air to buy time. A shimmering flash above and behind him made him bank sharply out of pure reflex, and that reflex saved him when a wingblade whizzed by just a hair from his muzzle. They had thestrals up high diving at him, the ones below were just a diversion! He spun through a complete roll as another thestral streaked out of the night sky with his wingblade in position, feeling a sharp tug when the blade slashed through the cargo pack saddle on his left, spilling some of its contents out into the void. There was a shimmer of light heralding the return of the mares to normal size, and Moonshade barely took one glance around and dove out and away as Summer Dawn gave a scream and hastily erected a shield around herself as she held herself aloft with levitation, causing another thestral to bounce off of it as he tried to slash her with his wingblade.

“Regroup!” Moonshade shouted as she banked away from another diving thestral, a shield forming around her as Summer Dawn protected her with magic. Starjumper was forced to bank away from Summer Dawn by another diving thestral, and the slender unicorn mare unleashed a pale beam of blue from her horn, the ice beam spell, her target the thestral that Starjumper had avoided. Her beam hit him in the flank, right on the cutie mark, and caused a layer of ice and frost to form with magical speed around his flank, rear leg, and creep up his side and back, freezing his left rear leg in place….but also weighing him down with the weight of the ice, causing him to sag towards the clouds. She then turned and stared down the last of the diving thestrals, who was coming right at her, but his body vanished in a circular burst of pink magic as she used teleportation as a weapon, teleporting him directly into the path of another attacking thestral. The two of them screamed as he reappeared and then crashed into each other, and they rebounded and spun erratically down towards the clouds below, both of them unconscious from the violence of the impact.

Even in the middle of a fight, Starjumper could appreciate the fact that Summer Dawn had just triple cast a teleport spell. She was maintaining both her levitation and her shield and had just used a teleport spell. Exceptional!

Seconds later, a shield formed around him, which protected all three of them from their attackers, and it turned into a chaotic scrum over the cloud tops. Starjumper kept trying to maneuver so they were all close enough for Summer Dawn to teleport them away, but Moonshade was using the fact she was protected by a shield to go on the offensive, ramming thestrals with the shield. Moonshade had taken four thestrals out of the fight with the shield just the few short moments since the thestrals attacked, displaying her fearsome skill in aerial combat, while Summer Dawn used her teleportation to keep close to Starjumper, not allowing the thestrals to split them apart the way they had Moonshade, using her magic to protect him as the majority of the enemy thestrals concentrated on him. It reached a point where she enclosed both of them in a shield and held them motionless in the air, putting all her strength into reinforcing her shield as the thestrals crashed into it to try to bring it down.

He just had to hold out until he changed! When he got his horn, he could end this in a matter of seconds! Summer Dawn had incredible power, but she didn’t know very many combat spells, or how to use them in a fight the way he did!

“Regroup!” Starjumper shouted, which caused Moonshade to bank sharply and start back towards them. She flew right at the thestrals keeping them split up, using her shield as a bowling ball, bashing them out of the way. He saw three new thestrals approaching from the northwest, just high enough to be able to dive at them, and what he saw on the chest of the lead thestral made him shout for Moonshade to go faster.

A spell dampener. It was one of the Shadow Blades!

“We have to go now!” he boomed. “Moonshade, pull up! Summer, port her to us, then port us out of here!”

“Okay!” Summer Dawn answered as Moonshade obeyed, flaring her wings and arresting much of her forward momentum. The thestral mare disappeared in a burst of pink magic and reappeared just under them, outside the shield—

And then the shield vanished! Summer Dawn gave a scream as she started falling out of the air!

He glanced up to see the lead thestral’s gem in his chest was glowing with a brilliant light…it wasn’t the same type of spell dampener the Shadow Blades used, it was one that projected a field of spell dampening! Starjumper dove after Summer Dawn as she plummeted down, and without her pegasus feather charm, she went right through the cloud deck. He tucked in his wings and pierced the clouds right behind her, losing sight of her in the foggy murk but hearing her scream, and that guided him so he was directly over her as he came out of the cloud, in line to intercept her and catching up. He reached out with his hooves as he got closer, ready to collect her and pull out as soon as he had her, but her eyes widened and she pointed with her hoof.

“LOOK OUT!”

In an instant, he was stunned. The sky and ground traded places wildly, and he couldn’t understand where he was, what he was doing, or even who he was. He saw a flash of metal, blurring of starlight, then the wild tumble slowed enough for him to see around him. He saw a leathery wing spinning away like a maple seed caught in the wind, spinning around an imaginary axis, with a series of droplets of blood shimmering and spreading in a wide arc towards him. They were almost pretty in the moonlight, like a thousand tiny red stars twinkling in the predawn sky, and he was bemused by their dance. But then an intense eruption of fiery pain blasted through him, causing him to nearly convulse as a mouthful of blood was forcibly expelled from his mouth to add to the thousand tiny stars.

Just before the blackness took him, he realized. The wing. The spinning wing.

It was his.

“NOOOO!” Summer Dawn shrieked as Starjumper was violently knocked out of his trajectory by a thestral that had burst from the clouds at an angle and converged on them. He had struck with his wingblades, and she watched in absolute horror as Starjumper’s wing sailed away from his body!

His wing! He had lost a wing!

He was tumbling out of control, blood flying away from the amputated base of his right wing and his back where the wingblade had slashed across it, very nearly hitting the joint of his other wing as it penetrated deeply into his armor and crossed over his opposite shoulder!

In a sudden fury, she felt her magic come back, falling out of range of whatever it was that had taken her magic away, and she struck with all the anguish and fury in her heart at seeing the stallion she loved injured so grievously. A raging torrent of pure, unformed magic raged from her horn, not a spell, just a release of pure magic in a raging torrent of pain and hurt and rage and loss and fury, and it struck the thestral that had hurt her Starjumper right in the back. The thestral didn’t even flinch when the furious torrent didn’t hit him, it went through him, going directly through his body, and in a bit of dark justice, it caused both his wings to sever from his body and flutter away as the bolt of pure magic raged through him. The thestral didn’t move, he just dropped out of the sky limply as he plummeted towards the ground.

He would not feel the impact. He was already dead.

Tears blurring her vision, her horn flared with pink magic and captured Starjumper in an aura of levitation, then she did the same for herself, slowing their fall as the ground below raced towards them. Blood was gushing from his wounds, and the stub of his right wing was shivering and twitching, which tore her heart in two to see it, to see that dreadful injury and know that it was permanent. In just moments, maybe seconds, the sun was going to rise and his wings were going to burn to ash, and that would prevent her from somehow sewing his wing back on to try to save it. It would burn to ash and be gone, be gone forever, and her beloved Starjumper would never fly again.

He would never fly again!

She managed to land them softly in a meadow formed by a tumbling brook that flowed down a valley, then used her magic as a bandage, forming planar shields down into the gash in his armor to press against his ghastly wounds to stem the bleeding. She had to stop the bleeding, or he would bleed out and die! She saw in horror that the cargo pack had been torn open and most of it was lost, and it had held their first aid supplies!

A sound from above made her form a shield around them almost by instinct, and not a moment too soon! A dozen thestrals landed around them, outside the shield, their expressions almost sadistically eager. They didn’t try to rush the shield, they just stood in a circle around her, to keep her from fleeing. They were waiting for whatever had robbed her of her magic to do it again.

Robbed her…she had to move! If she lost her magic, Starjumper would die before the thestrals had the chance to kill him!

With gritted teeth and nearly a howl of anguish, knowing that she was abandoning any hope of restoring Starjumper’s wing, she focused her gaze through her tears on a distant mountaintop, her eyes making out a small clearing not far the summit with a cave entrance visible. Her horn flared with intense pink magic, and then she and Starjumper vanished in a circular burst of energy.

They reappeared nearly five miles away, and Summer Dawn wilted from the effort as they reappeared on the mountainside. She immediately picked him up and retreated into the cave, getting them out of sight, advancing deeply enough into the cave to break line of sight with the entrance. She used a cloth to hide the light of her horn as much as possible, wrapping it around her horn, then she teleported the pack saddle, breastplate, and backplate directly off of him without really thinking about what she was doing, which let her get access to his wounds. His wing was amputated almost right against his back, with just a nub left where it extended out of his back, and the deep gash started just beside it and got deeper as it went across his shoulders, nearly to the bone, then it stopped just at his left shoulder. Had he not been wearing armor, that blow would have sheared through his spine and killed him instantly! Thank Celestia for that armor!

She gasped and nearly screamed in dismay when his remaining wing suddenly shuddered, and then smoke sizzled from it as it turned to ash.

No! The sun was rising, his wings were burning away! The wing he lost was burning away, and she would never get it back! She watched in horror as his remaining wing turned grayish black, and then it crumbled to fine ash on the stone floor of the cave. It was gone, and that meant the wing he’d lost was also gone. It was gone!

He would never fly again!

She collapsed over his body as his horn tore through the fur and skin and flesh of his forehead and grew out to full length with magical speed, weeping both out of fear for him and grieving what he had lost. He loved to fly so much! It brought him such joy, and now it was gone! It was gone!

But there were more immediate concerns. With his wings gone, the terrible bleeding from the amputated wing had stopped, but the deep gash across his shoulders remained. She emptied out the remains of the pack, desperately looking for anything that might help her—

A vial of Comet Tail’s healing tonic! There was one in the bottom of the pack!

She nearly sobbed in relief and joy as she took the small vial up in her magic and unstoppered it. It must have worked its way out of the first aid bag sometime during the trip and fallen to the bottom of the pack, where it had stayed when the rest of the first aid supplies were lost! Thank Celestia for that bit of good luck! She extracted the clear, thick liquid from the vial with her magic and then quickly spread it into the deep slash on his shoulders, and it quickly started doing its work. The bleeding stopped almost immediately, and she remembered to press the sides of the wound together with her hooves as the tonic did its work, mending at least some of the ghastly injury, enough to seal the wound. The tonic continued to do its work as she watched, the deep wound stitching itself back together, and Starjumper gave a relieved sigh in his unconscious state, passing into a natural sleep.

He was going to make it. He was going to survive!

She started crying again, an overwhelming relief flooding through her as she realized that he was out of mortal danger, and it gave her a moment to get her bearings. She was in an unknown kingdom filled with unicorns that may or may not be friendly, and being actively hunted by thestrals. Starjumper was unconscious and injured, Moonshade—she didn’t know where she was, and a sudden dread flooded her as she realized that Moonshade may be dead. Even if she wasn’t, they were separated, Summer Dawn had to stay hidden to protect Starjumper, and Moonshade would no doubt be far too busy to—

“Little slip,” a quiet whisper called. There was a shadow in the cave entrance, and then Moonshade advanced around the corner!

“Moonshade!” she said in a strangled voice.

“Quiet!” she said in a harsh whisper. “They’re looking for us!”

“How did you find us?”

“I saw where you landed, and saw where you were looking when you teleported. I realized you’d go to the only place you could see where you could hide,” she explained. “It took me some time to draw off the thestrals and then shake them so I could come back. Is he dead?”

“No,” she said, her voice nearly breaking. “But he’s hurt. He’s—“ she broke into wracking sobs, her shoulders shaking.

“I saw,” she said in a grim, nearly compassionate voice. “I saw, little slip. I’m sorry.”

“His wings burned, we can’t get the one he lost back. We’ll never get it back,” she said, teardrops sliding down her muzzle and falling to the stone floor of the cave.

“I know,” she said, putting a hoof on her shoulder. “But we have to keep him alive. He’s the only chance we have to save the Night Stone. Can you do magic to hide the cave mouth? They’ll be looking for us, and they’ll look inside any cave they see.”

“I….yes. Star taught me a spell that will work,” she said. “The stone shaping spell. I can close the cave entrance, make it so small they can’t get in but still let us get air. Even if they find us, they won’t be able to reach us, not without digging through the stone. When Star’s well enough to travel, I can teleport us straight up into the sky and you can fly us on to Crystallon. I won’t need to open the cave mouth back up.”

“That’s a good plan,” she said in a reassuring voice, patting her shoulder. “Shape the stone so there’s an overhang that hides the air hole from the sky, so they have no reason to even land in the clearing,” she said.

“Okay. Watch over him while I close the cave mouth, Moonshade.”

“I will,” she nodded.

She tended to her task with fear-induced speed, both of being spotted by the thestrals and of leaving Starjumper. She couldn’t see him from where she did her work because of the bend in the cave, but her mind was just racing, and it was hard to concentrate on her magic because of her turmoil. When he woke up…Celestia’s glory, it would break her heart to have to tell him! She couldn’t even imagine the anguish it was going to cause him to know he would never fly again! She had to pause to wipe the tears from her eyes with her hoof so she could see what she was doing. And to have it happen like this, where he wouldn’t even have time to grieve his loss! They still had to get to the Nightlands, they still had to save the Night Stone or the entire world would be thrown into chaos! And now they had to do it with Starjumper suffering a dreadful injury to both his body and his psyche!

A sudden towering fury rose up in her. The thestrals had taken away the one thing in Starjumper’s life that gave him the most joy…she suddenly didn’t find anything at all wrong with Moonshade’s plan to kill her own mother! She was the one that ordered those thestrals to attack them, she was the one that took Starjumper’s wing! She couldn’t die slowly enough for it to satisfy Summer Dawn’s desire for her to hurt ten times more than she had hurt her stallion!

She had attacked the thestral that hurt Starjumper. No, she had killed him. And she didn’t feel any remorse over it. Not one bit. She was…she was mad that he didn’t suffer more for what he did to her Starjumper!

But seeing him as she came back around the corner melted away her fury, replacing it with concern and worry and fear. She sat down by his head, which Moonshade had propped on the ruined saddle pack, then tenderly stroked his mane, trying to bring him comfort in his sleep, let him know that she was there, that she was watching over him. He needed her. He would need her now more than ever, he would need her magic, he would need her emotional support as he dealt with the loss of one of the most precious things in his life. And she would be there for him. She would be there for him all the rest of their days. She leaned down and nuzzled his cheek, very gently, very tenderly, vowing that no matter what, he would always have her.

She loved him. And she would be there for him.

Always.

Crystallon

He knew.

Even before he opened his eyes, he knew.

He rose back up from dreamless slumber without opening his eyes, and laid there without moving for a long moment to try to come to terms with what had happened. He had lost his wing. He remembered seeing it spin away from him just before he passed out. And there was no way they’d recovered it in time, sunrise was just seconds away. Most likely, he changed while still falling to the ground, and either Summer Dawn saved him or he somehow saved himself and didn’t remember it.

He would never fly again. When sunset came, he would transform into a thestral with only one wing, he would forever be crippled in his preferred form, he would never feel the wind in his mane or enjoy the panoramic view of the land far below him again. For him, the nights would no longer hold the wonder and joy they once had, he would pass them on the ground, and most likely inside, away from the sky, away from the stars. He wouldn’t want to look up at them and know that he could never get close to them again.

It would hurt too much to be constantly reminded of what he had lost.

His mother didn’t raise a quitter, however, or a whiner. He had a job to do, and a very important one at that. He was out here doing nothing less than saving both the Nightlands and Equestria from the ravages of the mad unicorn, Sombra, a master of dark magic. He didn’t have the time or the luxury to mourn, or lament, he’d have time to come to terms with his loss when all this was over. Until then, he had to keep his mind on the goal, which meant moving forward one step at a time. And the next step would obviously be dealing with the throbbing pain across his upper back. The injury that took his wing had cut much deeper, through his armor, and he could feel it very close to the base of his neck, across his shoulders.

From the feel of it, they were on the move. He could feel himself rocking and swaying, telling him he was shrunk down and inside the saddle bag. He was laying on something soft, and had something warm over him, and he could feel a constriction around his throbbing shoulders. They’d bandaged him, telling him that the others were alright. Moonshade had to be flying them, and he knew that Summer Dawn was close to him. He could smell her. He was laying on his side, his head propped on a pillow, and then he felt Summer Dawn’s hoof gently brush at his mane. He slowly opened his eyes, which elicited a gasp from her, and she leaned down and kissed him very carefully on the cheek. “Oh Star, you’re awake,” she said in a charged emotional tone. “I was so worried!”

“I feel it, across my back. Did you use the healing tonic?”

“There was only one vial left,” she told him quickly. “It was all I could find, the bag was slashed, most of our supplies fell out. Star,” she said, then she broke into tears. “Oh, Star, I don’t know how to tell you this—”

“I know,” he said woodenly, without emotion. “I know, Summer. Right before I blacked out, I saw my—I know what happened.”

“I tried to get it back,” she said, tears streaming down her cheeks. “But the thestrals had us surrounded, and I had to teleport us away before I lost my magic again, and then the sun rose—“

“I know. It’s not your fault,” he told her in a gentle voice. “I’m sure you did everything you could, and thank you for trying. Don’t blame yourself.”

“Oh Star, I’m so sorry! I know how much you—I just wish—I can’t—”

“Shhh,” he breathed, reaching up a hoof and putting it on her shoulder. “Are we in Unicornia yet?”

“I don’t know. We’ve been flying for half the night,” she answered, sniffling a bit. “It’s just after sunrise now, you just changed a little bit ago, and Moonshade said that we should reach Crystallon by late morning. She said we may find a healer there, because we’re going to need help. When the moon comes up, Star—”

“I know. My amputated wing is going to bleed me out,” he said grimly. “If we can’t find a healer, we’re going to have to cauterize the wound, Summer. Moonshade probably knows how to do it, she knows basic battlefield first aid, but she’ll need your help with the fire to heat the iron she’ll have to use to do the deed. You remember the fire spell I taught you?”

She nodded, wiping at another tear in her eye with her hoof. “I’m so sorry, Star,” she said in a small voice. “If I had shouted a moment sooner, you may have seen him coming.”

“Summer, don’t blame yourself,” he said in a stronger voice. “I don’t.”

“I just feel so—I saw it happen, Star. I saw them hurt you, and I felt so, so helpless, so angry.”

He held a hoof up to her, and when she reached out to him, he curled his hoof around hers and pulled her down to lay beside him. He put his foreleg over her, and she almost instinctively cuddled up to him. She was quiet a long time, just pressing her cheek and muzzle against his chest, her horn scraping against the side of his neck, and then she sighed and sniffled. “Some help I am. You’re the one that’s hurt, and here you are comforting me,” she said in a weak voice.

“Just because you weren’t injured, it doesn’t mean that you’re not hurt, Summer,” he told her gently. “But I’m going to be alright. We’ll deal with this as it comes, because we don’t really have much choice. If I stop to think about—“ he broke off, then took a deep breath. “Let’s just say that when this is over, when we’re back home, I’m going to need you like I’ve never needed another pony. But right now, we don’t have time to do anything more than put a bandage on it and move on.”

“I’ll be there for you, Star. I will always be there for you,” she said to him in a quiet, gentle, compassionate, but powerful voice, wrapping her foreleg around him and pulling herself against him tightly.

They passed the two hours as Moonshade flew them deeper and deeper into Unicornia quietly, mainly because the wound across his back and shoulders was painful enough to sap much of his energy. Summer Dawn tended him carefully and attentively over those hours, checking the bandage over his shoulders several times, helping him eat and drink since putting any weight at all on his front legs caused him nearly blinding pain, and trying to make him as comfortable as possible. Moonshade showed off her stamina by not stopping, not slowing down, until he felt them begin to descend. Summer Dawn rushed over to the mesh window and gave a gasp. “It’s Crystallon! Star, it’s beautiful!” she gushed. “There’s a crystal castle like in the Crystal Empire, but all the crystal spires are glowing with light! The architecture is a lot like Canterlot, too!”

“I’ll see it soon enough,” he said from his bedroll.

They felt Moonshade land, which made him wince and hiss in pain, and heard her challenged almost immediately. “Thestrals are not welcome at these gates!” they heard a harsh voice call out.

“I come bearing a message from Princess Celestia of Canterlot for the King,” Moonshade retorted. “And I’m also carrying an injured pony that needs a healer.”

“You’re carrying a pony? Where, in your saddlebag?” the voice asked sneeringly.

In answer to that, Summer Dawn used her magic to open the flap, which no doubt caused a reaction outside since it was limned over in the pink of her magic, and she levitated both of them out of the bag and set Starjumper down on the road. The city was surrounded by a wall, and Moonshade had landed on a bridge leading to a huge pair of open gates through the wall, with the white marble buildings of the city visible behind them. She ended the shrink spell all but standing over Starjumper’s prone form, then gave them a narrow-eyed glare. “We need a healer, and we need one now!” she nearly shouted at them. “He’s badly hurt!”

“And?” one of the two unicorn guards at the gate asked scornfully. They were wearing resplendent bronze-colored armor with crested helmets, and both of them were very large unicorns, nearly the size of Starjumper. “The follies of a Magestrian and a thestral are not our responsibility to correct.”

“We don’t have time to deal with the doorponies,” Starjumper said in a low, weak tone, rolling onto his hooves, then he slowly stood up, grimacing from the pain. He managed to get to his full height, the knees on his forelegs trembling, and he gave them a baleful stare. “We need to see the King and Queen immediately.”

The shorter of the two gasped. “You’re a Lykan!” he blurted.

“Yes I am,” he replied bluntly. “And if you don’t get us to the palace, you may find yourself in a war with the Nightlands by the end of the month. Summer Dawn, show them the seal of Equestria on the letter.”

The two of them looked at him, then at Moonshade, then they looked at the rolled scroll Summer Dawn pulled from the bag with her magic, with the wax seal out so they could see it.

The two guards looked at the seal, then each other, then the taller of the two cleared his throat. “What happened to you, Lykan?” he asked.

“Thestrals attacked us at the border with Maretonia,” he answered. “They tried to stop us from getting here. I suggest you tell your captain of the guard to triple his patrols and treat any thestrals you see except for her as hostile.”

The two guards looked at each other again, then they split apart, moving out of their way. “This avenue goes directly to the palace, just stay on it,” he said. “Present the letter to the guard at the gate. He’ll take care of things from there.”

“What about a healer? He can barely stand!” Summer Dawn demanded.

“They can arrange that at the palace,” the other guard said. “If you can get him there, they can take care of him.”

Growling in her throat, Summer Dawn wrapped Starjumper in her magic and lifted him off the ground, then pulled up his unshrunk bedroll and more or less pushed it up under him until he laid down upon it. “Let’s go, Moonshade, we don’t have much time,” she ordered, starting through the gates at a brisk canter.

They attracted a whole lot of attention as they moved up the wide avenue with the palace at its end in the distance, a huge building either made of glittering crystal or cladded with it, but not in the style of the Crystal Palace in the Empire. It was more of an Equestrian style, a large palace with soaring towers that shimmered and glittered in the afternoon sun even as they glowed from within with magical light. Unicorns stopped what they were doing and watched them pass with harsh looks at Moonshade and almost complete silence, and the open hostility directed at her made Moonshade both raise her head and puff out her chest a bit in defiant pride and walk much closer to Summer Dawn than normal. The size of Crystallon made them walk for many minutes as the castle grew in their vision as they approached, until they reached the silvery fence surrounding it. Four silver-armored guards almost rushed forward when Moonshade approached them, but Summer Dawn put herself between the thestral and the unicorns. “We bear a message for the King and Queen of Unicornia from Princess Celestia of Equestria,” she called loudly, making them slow to a stop. “But what’s more important, we need a healer immediately. We were attacked by the Night Queen’s soldiers on the way here and they injured him.”

“She is a Nightlands soldier, Magestrian,” one of the guards pointed out, pointing at hoof at Moonshade. “That armor? She’s a Shadow Blade, one of the Night Queen’s royal guards! Do you have any idea of how ridiculous your statement sounds?”

“I was a Shadow Blade,” Moonshade hissed in reply. “Not anymore!”

“Show him the letter, Summer,” Starjumper said from his levitating bedroll.

She again presented the scroll to them, seal out so they could see it. “The thestral is with us because what’s going on is in the Nightlands, and she was witness to it,” Starjumper explained. “She’s the one that brought us the information we’re going to present to your King and Queen. And the Night Queen tried to kill us to stop us from warning you.”

The four of them pulled back a little and talked among themselves, then one of them galloped into the palace a moment later. Another moment later, a quite resplendent looking unicorn came out, a burly stallion with a white coat and black mane that was expertly styled. He advanced up to them and through the gates, then looked at them with barely disguised contempt. “If you have a message from Equestria, deliver it to me,” he said pompously. “And be gone from our city.”

“But he needs a healer!” Summer Dawn protested, pointing a hoof at Starjumper. “The thestrals injured him!”

“That’s not our concern,” he sniffed.

“And who are you to make that decision?” Summer Dawn demanded.

“I am Prince High Hoof,” he replied, almost sneeringly. “Who are you to address me in such a low manner, you Magestrian peasant?”

“Our orders were to present this message to the King and Queen,” Starjumper said. “We will not give the message to anyone but them.”

“Then you can take your message and go back to Equestria with it,” the effete stallion declared.

“Fine. And when the Night King sends his thestral armies across the border and lays waste to your kingdom, you can tell your parents that you turned away the messengers that were sent to warn you about it,” Starjumper retorted.

“Ha! That proves you are charlatans! There is no Night King!”

“There will be,” Starjumper told him in as strong a voice as he could muster. “And that is what we’re here to warn your parents about. The Night Queen is about to lose her throne to a psychopathic maniac, and his first act will be to raze Unicornia to the ground. But, if watching your kingdom burn and everypony in it get slaughtered is what you want, then we’ll be happy to leave you to it.”

“You’d better listen to him, Prince curly-mane,” Moonshade added. “You have no idea what’s going on up in those mountains. I do, and I’m trying to stop it. That’s why I’m here.”

He was about to say something, but a circular burst of green magic heralded the arrival of another unicorn. This one was even taller than Starjumper, by a considerable margin, with long, powerful legs and a broad, imposing muzzle. He was wearing a crown atop his short-cropped black mane, and his coat was a burnished gold with white socks on his hooves. “Where is the Lykan?” he demanded, looking at them, then fixing his gaze on Starjumper. “By the spire! A living Lykan!” he blurted. “What goes on here? Who are you, Lykan, and why do you come to Unicornia?”

“We bear a message from Princess Celestia of Equestria for the King and Queen, over a very grave matter,” Starjumper answered, lowering his head as the guards and the annoying prince bowed to this new pony…which had to be the King. Summer Dawn and Moonshade did the same quickly. “Your Highness,” he added.

“Did you come for the Night Stone?”

Starjumper gave him a bit of a surprised look. “No,” he replied. “Well, yes, at least temporarily. I can explain everything inside, your Highness.”

“Bring them in, quickly! Son, send for Mender for the Lykan!” he ordered.

“But Father, they—“

“He is a Lykan!” the King cut him off. “Do you remember what I told you about the Lykans?”

“Thank you, your Highness!” Summer Dawn said with great relief and sincerity in her voice.

They were carried into the palace, into a very richly appointed parlor not far from the main doors that was decorated in pale woods, white silk, and golden accents. Starjumper was moved from his bedroll to a couch as the Queen of Unicornia joined them, an equally tall, regal, quite beautiful mare with shimmering rose colored eyes, a pale tan coat, and a lustrous auburn mane that was so long it dragged the ground around her front hooves. Her tail was just as long, dragging the ground behind her. They read the message Celestia sent them quickly, then approached them as a unicorn wearing a red garment over his shoulders and back carefully removed the bandage over Starjumper’s shoulders. “Is it true? Is the Night Queen trying to resurrect Sombra?” the Queen asked in a gasp.

“We believe so, your Highness,” Summer Dawn answered. “This is the Night Queen’s daughter, she brought us the information. She doesn’t want to see Sombra take over her homeland.”

“He’ll enslave my kind and turn us into monsters,” Moonshade said vehemently. “I can’t let that happen. My mother has lost her mind, and she must be stopped.”

“And that’s why she sent a Lykan. Celestia was always a clever one,” the King mused, looking at Starjumper. “I can see her plan. She wants you to take the Night Stone so Sombra can’t use it against the thestrals.”

“It’s the Night Stone they’re using to try to restore Sombra, your Highness,” Starjumper answered. “If I can get to it and take it before they finish, we stop Sombra from returning.”

“A sound plan,” the Queen told them. “One that the Night Queen must have foreseen if she sent soldiers after you.”

“She’s been trying to kill him for moons, your Highness,” Moonshade told her. “She knows he’s the only pony that can stop her plan.”

“How does it look, Mender?” the King asked.

“A fairly deep wound, your Majesty,” the red-garbed pony answered. “It looks to have been treated with a healing potion of some sort, but not one of sufficient potency to do little more than stop the bleeding.”

“We used a healing tonic, but we only had one left after the attack,” Summer Dawn said, hovering close to Starjumper. “The thestrals tore the bag we had holding our supplies. We lost almost everything.”

“What can you do for him, Mender?”

“I should be able to treat this wound, your Majesty, but it’s going to take at least a full day.”

“There’s more to it,” Starjumper said in a quiet, reluctant tone. “I…lost a wing in the attack,” he said in a strained voice, which made Summer Dawn put a comforting hoof over his. “When sunset comes, I’m going to bleed to death quickly if that injury isn’t treated.”

“So the legends are indeed true,” the healer pony mused. “Unicorn by day, thestral by night.”

“They are,” the King said in a strong voice. “What can you do for him in that regard, Mender?”

“I grieve to say there is nothing I can do to restore the wing, young stallion,” he said in a compassionate voice. “My healing magic and the alchemical potions I can brew come nowhere near that kind of restorative power. But I can seal the wound. Let me go back to my office and get the potion I need to start treatment, by your leave, your Majesty.”

“Go quickly, Mender, he needs to be healed as quickly as possible,” the King told him.

He nodded, stepped away from the couch and bowed, then scurried quickly from the room.

“Now, Shadow Blade, I want you to tell me everything,” the King said, looking at Moonshade. “What the Night Queen is planning, and how you intend to stop her.”

“Yes, your Highness.” Starjumper listened as she laid out the framework of the Night Queen’s plan and Celestia’s answer, as the red-robed Mender returned and carefully treated his wound with a thick, sweet-smelling oil of some sort that soothed the pain as it was applied with a swab. He very nearly fell asleep under that careful, tender ministration, as the exhaustion caused by a wound like that nearly overtook him. Moonshade was not specific when it came to exactly how they were going to retrieve the Night Stone, only saying that she would get them into the Cathedral of Night using her knowledge of the citadel and reach the room holding it, where they would then steal it. Moonshade was speaking as if she didn't trust the King, and in that respect, he couldn't blame her. After all, the thestrals and the Theradale unicorns of Unicornia had hostile relations.

Besides, she was following his mother's advice: trust no pony.

“I see,” the King said after Moonshade finished. “There’s little we can do to help you since my soldiers could never hope to keep up with a thestral in the Nightlands, but what we can do is heal your Lykan companion and restore his strength for the task ahead, as well as resupply you. I believe your plan has a good chance of success. Again Celestia shows her cunning,” he said approvingly. “Once you retrieve the Night Stone, you should return to Crystallon as quickly as you can. We can deter the thestrals that will be after you and offer you a safe place to rest before returning to Equestria.”

“We’ll be in Maretonia ten minutes after recovering the Night Stone, your Highness. We appreciate the offer, but we’ll be moving far too fast for the thestrals to keep up.”

“Ah, you have some kind of magical device to get you away?”

Starjumper didn’t answer immediately, as he looked at the king and sensed...something. He wasn’t sure if it was his voice, or his eyes, or his demeanor, but the king suddenly didn’t seem quite so kind and amenable to him. “I’ve been taught a spell that will get us away from the Nightlands, by Princess Celestia,” he answered carefully, sparing a slight glance at Summer Dawn, praying that she didn’t elaborate. “I left behind a focus object in Maretonia, and when I cast the spell, we’ll be transported back to where it is.”

“I’m familiar with that spell. You left it someplace hidden and protected, I hope?”

“In a cave not far from the border with Unicornia,” he answered. “The Princess felt that with such a huge head start, we could beat the thestral warriors back to Equestria.”

“Celestia is a clever one, her plan will work,” the king said with a slightly eager smile. “And I think that we’re interrupting your rest, my young friend. The Queen and myself will leave you to Mender’s care and return to speak more of this later this afternoon, when we have time.”

“Of course, your Highness,” Starjumper said, glancing at Summer Dawn. She had a slightly puzzled look on her face, but thank Celestia, she wasn’t saying anything. Moonshade’s expression was stoic and all business, which was normal for her, but the look in her eyes was one of comprehension. Summer Dawn kept her silence as the healer tended to him, and when he was finished, he took a step back.

“Right now, my young friend, sleep is the best thing for you,” he declared. “The potions and remedies I use work best on a sleeping pony. I’ll return just before sunset so we can seal the wound in your—seal that wound,” he said carefully, trying to sound neutral, “and then a night’s rest should get you well enough to travel. The healing salves and potions I use can’t heal instantly, but they do heal fairly quickly.”

“Alright. Thank you for your aid, Master Mender,” Starjumper told him with a nod.

“I’ll have a meal brought in for you, madam unicorn, madam thestral,” he told them. “The couches should suffice for you if you need to rest.”

“Thank you very much, my Lord Mender, for everything,” Summer Dawn told him.

“It was my pleasure, madam,” he replied in a sincere, gentle voice.

The red-garbed unicorn left them, leaving them alone in the room, and Summer Dawn looked down at him. “Star—“

He held up a hoof and shook his head, then lifted it as his horn glowed brilliantly with golden light. A shimmering dome appeared around them, his dome of silence spell. “We have to speak quickly before they realize the silence isn’t normal,” he said.

“Why didn’t you tell the King the truth?”

“Remember what my mother said, just before we left, Summer? Trust no pony. And I don’t trust him,” he replied bluntly. “Right, now, I’ll bet my tail that he’s ordering unicorns to search the caves across the border along a direct line from Marette, searching for the focus object. If not for the fact that I’m too injured to continue, I’d be teleporting us all out of here right now,” he said darkly.

“I agree with Starjumper,” Moonshade said, looking towards the door. “The King wants the Night Stone.”

“You think so?”

“His scent changed as he heard our plan,” she answered. “I could smell his greed,” she added darkly.

“So, what do we do, Star?” Summer Dawn asked.

“We play along,” he answered. “I’ll slow us down in this condition, so we’ll accept their aid and then leave the minute I can travel. In the meantime, we stay in this room, and stay as close together as we can. Summer, it will fall on you.”

“I can—“

“Say nothing,” he said. “We trust you know what to do. Just be ready.”

“I will.”

“One thing,” Moonshade said. “If we get separated, we meet at Point One. Remember where that is?”

“I do,” Starjumper nodded.

“I remember,” Summer Dawn added.

He gave the two mares a cautionary look, then he ended the spell, feeling a sudden exhaustion wash over him. He then laid back and closed his eyes deliberately, and seconds later, he heard Summer Dawn move two of the other couches in the parlor closer to him, then heard them climb onto them to rest.

With the quiet and the pain and the exhaustion that came with his injuries, it took only moments for Starjumper to drift off to sleep.

It was well into midafternoon when he finally woke up, opening his eyes to see the sun drifting lower down a large, elegant arched window. Years of practice told him with a single glance that sunset was about an hour away. He heard the faint clanking of metal, warning him that they weren’t alone in the room, but he could admit that he felt much, much better. The pain across his shoulders was just a dull ache now, telling him that Mender’s potions and spells had healed a significant amount of his injury, and that was a welcome relief. But the fact that armored guards were in the room was a concern to him, spurring him to shake off the cotton in his head and raise his head off the couch and look back to where the other couches were, where Summer Dawn and Moonshade had been sleeping.

They were empty.

He rolled onto his belly and sat up as best he could on the couch, wincing in pain when he had to move his shoulders, and saw that two armored guards stood by the door in the room, and his friends were not there. The two large, metal-clad unicorns gave him a steady, emotionless look, then one of them lifted a small gong from a hook on the shoulder of his armor and rung it using his magic.

He had the feeling that whoever answered that summons was not going to be very pleasant.

Moments later, the King himself entered the room. The two armored guards bowed on their front legs to him as he entered, and the tall, raven-maned unicorn stopped not far from his guards, keeping a lot of distance between the two of them. That was also not a good sign, not at all, and Starjumper opened his senses to check for any lingering spells in the room, something he could do without using magic himself. Any accomplished magician could sense the presence of magic after working with it for so long. He could sense a shield, an invisible planar shield separating him from the King.

That confirmed his worst suspicions.

“Your Highness,” Starjumper said evenly, bowing his head. “Where are my companions?”

“The Queen is giving them a tour of the palace,” he replied smoothly. “And that will give us a chance to further discuss your mission while they are being entertained.”

“There’s honestly nothing further to discuss,” Starjumper answered, struggling to a seated position. “We’ve told you—“

“What you were told to do. What I will tell you is what you will do,” he interrupted. “The Night Stone was made by us. It belongs to us, and you will return it to us, its rightful owners,” he said strongly.

“It won’t do you any good,” Starjumper protested. “Without Lykans to—“

“But I have a Lykan, my friend,” he said in a darkly amused voice, giving him a malevolent smile. “When you return it to us, you will return to your ancestral duty and use its power for the betterment of all unicorns. You are a Lykan, Starjumper, you are connected to the Night Stone. You can safely use it, and so you shall.”

“You overlook something, your Highness. I am the one that decides when and how it will be used. And I will not use it for somepony that forces me to do it.”

“I will not force you, Lykan,” he said in a confident voice. “You will use it as I direct you of your own free will.”

“How can it be my free will if you’re the one dictating what I do with it?” Starjumper challenged. “The Night Stone does belong to you, the descendents of those who made it, your Highness. But it also belongs to the thestrals. They had a hoof in its creation, an equal role, so they also have every right to it. And to be honest about it, they need it more than you. When the Night Queen is deposed and the threat of Sombra is neutralized, I’ll return the Night Stone to the Cathedral of Night and then I will leave. Nopony will be using its power, neither the thestrals nor the Theradales. I won’t allow it to be used as a tool of war, nor will I allow it to become a bargaining chip between you and the Nightlands.”

“A noble declaration, Lykan,” he said in a more hostile voice, yet was still speaking in a civil tone, “but you have no right to deny us what is ours by ancestral right. We created the Night Stone. It belongs to us. The thestrals betrayed us and drove us away, denying us what is ours. And we will not be denied the Night Stone, not when a Lykan has finally appeared to remove it from the treacherous thestrals!”

“The thestrals that betrayed you were the thestrals of over a thousand years ago,” Starjumper told him. “The thestrals of today need the Night Stone. Without it, they will lose the ability to fly and walk on walls, be trapped in their homes and villages high in the mountains, and they will certainly die. Or does that matter to you?”

“It does not,” he sneered. “After everything they have done to us, to the Lykans, to their neighbors, there is not a unicorn, pony, griffon, or hippogryph that would mourn the loss of the thestrals. The magic of the Night Stone made them a scourge on the Eastern Kingdoms, and if they wither and perish without it, well, that is a punishment they brought upon themselves.”

“So, you’re saying that my mother should just curl up and die? And since I’m half thestral, that I should as well?” Starjumper challenged, slowly getting off the couch to stand.

“You are no thestral. You are a Lykan,” he replied simply. “One of the blessed children of the Night Stone.”

“And I would not be a Lykan if I did not have thestral blood,” he retorted. “The Night Stone itself was forged from thestral magic by unicorns. I know how it was made. I know what it is. The Night Stone was created by unicorns using the magic of the original thestrals to grant their ability to walk on walls to their unicorn allies, to make it much more easy for the unicorns that sought refuge from the tyranny of Discord to live in the high mountains. And far more important to me than that, you want to take something from the thestrals that they need to survive, just to right some ancient wrong, and some of those thestrals are my family. You want me to kill my mother, kill my sister, kill my aunt and uncle and cousins, because a thousand years ago the ancestors of the thestrals were cruel and unjust to your ancestors. That, your Highness, is evil. And I will not help you.”

The King gave him a towering look of both anger and scorn. “You don’t have a choice in the matter,” he declared. “You will retrieve the Night Stone and bring it back here. If you do not, you will never see your little Magestrian friend again.”

Starjumper had to struggle to maintain his composure, to not give in to the sudden fury rising up in him and lose himself to the power of the Night Stone. He could feel it, feel it lurking just beyond the edges of his being, ready to flood him with its power if he opened the doorway between them with his emotions.

There was only one thing he could do, else the Night Stone would take him and he might very well die. He had to trust in Summer Dawn and Moonshade. His horn flared with golden magic, which caused the King to flinch back a little bit and his two guards to surge forward, flanking him and enclosing him a spherical shield, but Starjumper’s spell was not an attack. The three of them winced and recoiled when his voice became indescribably loud, and he shouted two words that were heard well beyond the boundaries of Crystallon. “POINT ONE!” Starjumper boomed, his voice shattering the windows behind him. He then executed his escape plan, enshrouding himself with an aura of golden magic and lifting his hooves off the floor, then he doublecast a teleport spell, vanishing from the room in a circular bust of golden magic.

He reappeared high, high over the city, out of reach of any unicorn spell, and looked down to see if Summer Dawn and Moonshade had heeded his call. He looked down over the palace compound, his eyes searching feverishly for any flash of pink, and then his heart soared when he saw it, a burst of pink magic in the courtyard far below. He made out Moonshade flying up and away from the palace, and the glimmer of pink was Summer Dawn, levitating herself and being carried along with her, holding onto her long tail. He teleported again to get in front of them, but still high, high over the city, and saw that Moonshade was doing what thestrals did when escaping from groundbound opponents, she was climbing as high as possible as fast as possible to get out of range of the unicorns’ magic. He realized that she didn’t have her armor, and neither did Summer Dawn. Moonshade saw the burst of magic from his teleport and changed her course to reach him, but he started moving to the west, towards the Nightlands.

She reached him after just a moment, and he put a hoof on her rump and let her pull him along. “Star!” Summer Dawn said from behind. “Are you okay?”

“I’m alright,” he replied. “Where did they take you?”

“To the dungeon,” Moonshade said. “We woke up in a cell. I wanted to break out and recover you, but the little slip convinced me that we should just play along until they healed you. She said they wouldn’t hurt you because they need you, and as long as we stayed in the cell and played along, we’d be safe.”

“She was right,” he said, giving Summer Dawn an appreciative look. “Well reasoned, Summer.”

“Thanks, Star,” she smiled. “Did they heal you?”

“I’m healed enough to travel, at least right now,” he replied. “But we’ll have to land at sunset and deal with my severed wing. We’ll have to cauterize it,” he said grimly.

Summer Dawn gasped. “No! There has to be another way!”

“We don’t have another way,” he replied. “I’ll bleed out if we don’t seal the wound. But we’re going to have to land anyway, we have to recover our equipment before we fly out of range of our ability to ‘port it back to us. We can’t do that up here.”

“Yes we can,” Summer Dawn said. “You bring it to us, I’ll levitate it so it doesn’t fall. That shouldn’t strain you too much.”

“Well, that would work. There was a mirror in the room where they held us, I can use that to scry for our equipment.”

“We’d better do it quick, before those stupid unicorns put it in an antimagic shell or something.”

“Let’s move out a bit further, so we’re not so obvious,” Moonshade said. “How far away can you do it, Star?”

“Twenty miles, but that’s the edge of my range to use the spell that way. Ten miles would be better.”

“We can manage ten miles,” she replied, surging forward. “We’ll land on that cloud right there, it’s about ten miles away,” she said, pointing at a low stratus cloud that had a fairly flat top. “It’ll also break their line of sight to us, they’ll think we flew over it and kept going.”

“Good idea,” Starjumper agreed. “Summer, the first thing I’ll recover is your pegasus feather charm, so you can land.”

“Okay.”

It took Moonshade only a moment to reach the cloud. She flew well past its border to make it look like they were flying on, then she slowed and descended, lightly setting her hooves on its flat top. Starjumper did the same, and he almost immediately teleported a large, full-length silver mirror that was hanging on the wall in the parlor where they’d been held to them. He then used it to scry, using an advanced spell that allowed him to see something that belonged to him through the mirror, a less advanced version of the mirror spell he planned to use to get the Night Stone, but still a very useful spell. It was designed so a magician could find something that he lost by seeing where it was, but Starjumper could use the image in the mirror to teleport the item to them.

The spell located their equipment in about five minutes, which was all being kept in a storeroom under the palace, from the looks of it. He focused his attention on what he could see in the mirror’s face, then he teleported Summer Dawn’s pegasus feather charm to her first, having it appear pinned in her mane, then she ended her levitation spell and dropped lightly to the cloud. He then went to work, focusing on every object in the mirror that belonged to them and teleporting it to them, which Summer Dawn caught in her magic before they fell through the cloud. He managed to get everything they’d managed to bring with them, getting their armor, the packs, what little supplies they had left, their heat stones, and then Summer Dawn had a brilliant idea. “Star, Mender took the bandages we had on you with him when he left. Do you think you can find them? They may let us see into his workshop. If so, then maybe we can find the potions he intended to use on you to seal your wing and bring them to us.”

He gave her a surprised and bright look. “Summer, that’s brilliant!” he said honestly. “Yes, I can find those bandages, they were on me long enough for the spell to consider them mine.”

“If we’re lucky, there’s more healing potions in here we can use.”

It took him nearly ten minutes to find the bandages, but Summer Dawn had been right. When he changed the view of the mirror, he found the bandages in a waste bin inside a large room filled with bottles, beakers, and vials, clearly the laboratory of a potion maker. “There’s so many, how do we know what we need?” Summer Dawn asked.

“There,” Starjumper said, changing the view to focus on a rack holding three vials of vibrant red liquid. “Those are healing elixirs, and very powerful ones. They must be what Mender was planning to use on me when I changed.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’ve seen them before,” he replied. “Dad made one once, but it took him nearly six months to do it. He swore to never do it again. I’m positive.”

“Then you should fetch them. Maybe we won’t have to burn you, Star,” Summer Dawn suggested. Seconds later, the three vials and the rack holding them vanished from the mirror and appeared in a circular burst in front of them, to be quickly ensnared in Summer Dawn’s levitation magic so they didn’t fall through the cloud and be lost to them. Then, just to be safe, he teleported the bandages to them as well, so he left no blood behind they could use in a magical spell to find him or try to control him.

He shook his head. “We can’t take that chance,” he said. “We cauterize the wound, then use the elixirs. If I remember right, they’ll heal the burn along with my other injuries. If we’re lucky, I could be fully recovered by morning. But, I won’t be able to shrink,” he warned. “Elixirs like these, they don’t work right if they’re shrunk down or used on a shrunk pony. I’ll have to stay at my full size tonight.”

“I can carry your weight, but it will slow me down. A lot,” Moonshade warned as Summer Dawn placed the elixirs in the pack as Starjumper ended the scrying spell, then allowed the mirror to fall through the cloud. He was done with it. “We’ll figure something out. Maybe the little slip can levitate you for a couple of hours and I can pull you with my tail, like how we got here. That should let us put a lot of distance from Crystallon, then I can carry you the rest of the night.”

“She’d have to stay unshrunk as well to use her magic like that,” Starjumper told her. “So she’d have to levitate both of us.”

“I can do it,” Summer Dawn declared strongly. “I can do it, Star. We have to get out of Unicornia, get into the Nightlands, and do it fast. We’re in more danger here than there. I’ll levitate both of us all night if that’s what it takes.”

“We did bring her for her magic,” Moonshade said with a slight smile and a nod.

“Alright then, Summer, that’s the plan,” he told her, giving her a proud look. “But I don’t expect you to keep it up all night. Just keep it up as long as you can, every minute will help.”

“At least we got out of there easy,” Moonshade chuckled.

“Very few unicorns can teleport,” Starjumper said simply. “They didn’t expect it, and they certainly wouldn’t have expected that both of us can do it.”

“It certainly does change the rules,” Summer Dawn said with a laugh. “That’s why I wasn’t worried when they put us in that dungeon cell. I knew I could get us out whenever I wanted to.”

“Smart move, Star, not telling them that you can.”

“Never reveal your strengths or your weaknesses to the enemy,” Starjumper said, quoting an old thestral saying.

They hastily geared up, Summer Dawn and Moonshade putting their armor back on, then Summer Dawn packed what supplies they had left in one of the saddlebags off one of the spare pack saddles that they hadn’t lost…and Starjumper was thanking his thorough father for insisting that they pack additional pack saddles in case the one they were using got damaged. Summer Dawn took a quick inventory of what they had left as she packed it in, telling them what they had, and Starjumper realized that they were going to need more supplies to make it. They didn’t have enough food left to make it the rest of the way, nor did they have enough waterskins left to carry enough water. “Moonshade, are there any places we can resupply along your planned route?” he asked after hearing the tally of food and water.

“Water will be easy, there are plenty of streams,” she answered as she watched Summer Dawn levitate the shrunken supplies into the saddlebag. “Food…I think we can manage. We’ll pass close to a village where I can probably resupply us, but it’s pretty far into the Nightlands. There’s…actually, I think I know where we can go for food after we get into the Nightlands,” she said, looking at him. “But that’s gonna depend on you.”

“What do you mean?”

“There’s a small village of Longwing thestrals not far from the border,” she told him. “They’re pretty standoffish, keep to themselves, but you’re a Longwing. They don’t know you, but they’ll take one look at your wings—“ she cut herself off and looked away in chagrin. “They’ll know you’re clan. Maybe you can talk them into selling us some supplies. We just have to time it so we arrive just after sunset, when you’re a thestral and before they go to bed for the night.”

“They will know me, at least know of me,” Starjumper said grimly. “Mother has kept in touch with her family since moving to Equestria, and I don’t doubt that what she writes in her letters has filtered down through the clan. they know my name, and know I’m a Lykan.”

“But they don’t know Moonstar,” Summer Dawn injected. “Just use that name, Star. I doubt Nightsong ever told them about you using a different name when you’re a thestral.”

“We don’t have many other options, Star,” Moonshade told him. “There aren’t any other villages even close to the route I picked. I chose it because of that, so we could avoid other thestrals as much as possible. And unless you want to eat cliff rats and mountain rabbits along the way, we don’t have many options.”

Summer Dawn shuddered and audibly gagged.

“Well, we can always try. And if they won’t sell it to us, we can always steal it,” he said simply.

“Now you’re thinking like a thestral soldier,” Moonshade said with a smile and an approving nod. “Now let’s get moving so we put as much distance between us and Crystallon as possible before sunset.”

“That means we shrink,” Starjumper declared. “Land around ten minutes before sunset, Moonshade.”

She nodded.

“I’ll do it, you need to save your strength, Star,” Summer Dawn said, stepping up to him.

Once they were shrunk down, in the satchel, and on the way, Summer Dawn laid down beside him as he rested near the heatstone mounted into the bottom of the pack, enjoying its warmth, and nuzzled his neck gently. She told him about how they’d woke up in the dungeon, no doubt affected by a sleep spell to keep them from waking up as they were moved, and how she’d had to talk Moonshade into not going to war with the entire city, to just sit tight and let the unicorns heal him and then escape. Starjumper was mightily impressed both by her wise reasoning in seeing the truth of the situation, and her patience in smartly just staying put and letting the unicorns help him because she knew they needed him. Truly, she had managed the situation with poise, intelligence, and wisdom, and he was so proud of her that he could barely contain himself.

It seemed that they’d barely talked a minute before they felt Moonshade land, and a glance through the mesh showed him that it was nearly sunset. The flap opened and Summer Dawn levitated them out and returned them to normal size, and he saw that she had again landed on a cloud, a flat spot on the edge of a cumulous cloud which made it seem like they’d landed at the base of a white cliff, and she’d smartly gone around to the far side of it, the west side, which gave them a view of the sun as it approached the peaks of the Nightlands, not far away now. Starjumper took a deep, cleansing breath and settled down on his belly on the cloud, pulling a metal cooking pan out of the pack and returning it to its normal size. He then used a spell to heat up the metal, maintaining it on the pan for minute after minute as the two mares looked on silently, until it started to glow a faint, ruddy red from the heat.

“You’ve done this before, Moonshade?” Starjumper asked in a focused voice.

“No, but I’m familiar with the process,” she replied, stepping towards him. “I’ll do it, little slip. The handle should be cool enough for me to cling to it.” She reached out a tentative hoof and put it on the wooden handle of the pot, which was starting to blacken around the base from the heat, then clung to it and nodded confidently. “Little slip, when he changes, you use your magic to hold him down,” she ordered. “He’s gonna jump when I do this.”

“Alright,” she said in a tremulous voice, her eyes shimmering with compassion and fear.

“Just another moment,” Starjumper said, looking towards the setting sun. “Everypony get ready.”

It was even less time than that. As soon as the sun sank below the peaks to the west, Starjumper felt the light of the moon rising behind the cloud go through him, and that triggered the change. His horn turned to ash and crumbled away from his forehead, and he felt—it was unlike anything he’d felt before, for obvious reasons. He felt his left wing tear free from his back and grow out to its full size in the span of three heartbeats, but his right wing, the lost wing, he felt...he felt only pain. He felt what was left of the wing erupt from his back, but then nothing, just the pain of the wound where his wing had been severed, which began bleeding profusely as soon as it formed.

“Hold him down!” Moonshade barked, and she advanced with the pan. He closed his eyes and looked away, and then he felt her apply it, felt the searing agony of the red hot metal burning his wounded, tortured flesh. He screamed in pain and flinched violently, unable to move much at all because of Summer Dawn’s levitation magic laid over him like a restraining blanket. The smell of boiling blood and burning flesh filled his now-sensitive nose as Moonshade made sure to keep the pan applied long enough to stop the bleeding, then she pulled it away with a sharp jerk, because the burned flesh was sticking to the metal. That made him scream again, then he collapsed onto the cloud, panting from the ordeal as the two mares inspected their work. “The bleeding stopped,” Moonshade declared. “How do we apply the elixir, little slip?”

“It’s a potion, he has to drink it,” she answered.

“Then let’s get them in his belly.”

“Just one,” he panted, not moving. “I can’t drink all three at once, only one can affect me at a time. We’d be wasting the other two. I drink one every four hours, that way they do their work through the night.”

“You sure?”

“My father made one of them once, I remember how they work,” he answered as he felt Summer Dawn release her magical hold on him. He still didn’t move, feeling his back and shoulders shiver from the residual pain. “How…how much is left?” he asked hesitantly.

“Not much,” Moonshade replied gruffly. “The wing was severed almost flush against your back, and the wound across your shoulders runs just above it. It missed your other wing by a whisker, the slash goes right across the base of your other wing. What’s left is barely three inches long. You…you may have to have what’s left removed, Star,” she warned him in a tight voice. “Usually a wound like this, it’s best to completely remove the remainder so it doesn’t snag on things.”

“That…I suppose that’s for the best,” he said stoically. “Let’s bandage it up and get moving.”

“Drink this first, Star,” Summer Dawn said in an emotional voice, a vial holding the elixir floating in front of him. He did so, not enjoying the bitter taste, but the pain started to fade with a warm sensation that radiated from his stomach as soon as the elixir reached it.

He held still as Summer Dawn wrapped the last bandage they had around his shoulders, half of its windings going under his front legs and the other half around his neck, and he felt both a jag of pain and a sudden feeling of loss when he almost reflexively opened his wings, feeling the pain in his back from trying to move a wing that was no longer there using muscles that had been sliced through and feeling a sudden surge of emptiness wash through him. It was easy to ignore, compartmentalize what had happened when he was a unicorn, but now, facing his loss directly, it hit him like a mountain. When he tried to raise his wings, he felt the cold winter air against only one of them. The other one, it was like…like…like it was numb and weightless. It didn’t feel like it wasn’t there anymore, he didn’t feel an absence. And with the pain subdued by the elixir affecting him, he just felt…nothing.

Nothing.

He would never fly again. He’d known it in his head after it happened, but now he knew it in his heart. In his soul. He would never fly again. He had lost one of the few things in his life that had brought him joy, peace, a feeling of freedom from his worries and his many duties. But it was gone now, taken from him in the flash of a metal blade and the span of a heartbeat in time. And he had never even had the chance to enjoy it one final time.

As Summer Dawn tied a rope around his middle, tied the other end around her middle, and then tied a second rope to the center of it and had Moonshade cling to the other end of it with her tail to allow her to pull them along, he felt the most profound sense of loss as she levitated them up off the cloud. He couldn’t do that for himself anymore, at least not at night. Just last night, he could have easily hovered in place using his own wings, pulled Summer Dawn along on his own. Now, he had to rely on Summer Dawn to get him off the cloud, get him into the air, and it made him feel crippled. Like he was no longer a whole pony.

Summer Dawn gave him a look filled with emotion, as she seemed to sense what was going through his mind as Moonshade took off and pulled them behind her, quickly gaining speed as she ascended even more to get them on line with the high mountains ahead of them. She put a hoof on his shoulder, her eyes shimmering and full of unshed tears. He said nothing, just lowered his eyes and looked down at the ground far below when they passed over the cloud, seeing a village’s magical lights in a shallow, wide river valley in the foothills of the mountains that formed the Nightlands.

But even that was painful. He closed his eyes, refused to look, because he knew that it was no longer a sight that he would be able to see on his own. From this moment on, for the rest of his life, he would never be this high again unless some other pony carried him.

The joy of it, the freedom, gone.

All the years of work, of practice to master his skills, wasted.

The remaining wing on his back seemed heavy to him now, and he knew that it would forever be a reminder of what he had lost. It would be a burden to him now, a curse, and every time he looked in the mirror and saw what was there and what was missing, he would know that the loss of the symmetry of his reflection was also the loss of the symmetry of his life.

Unicorn by day, thestral by night…but no longer a whole thestral. He no longer felt like a thestral. Now, he was a unicorn that lost his horn at night and carried the burden of a single wing that would forever remind him that he was no longer the same pony.

He knew he’d eventually feel better. The loss was too new, too raw, and he had every right to feel sorry for himself, to mourn what he had lost, at least a little bit, at least tonight. But he couldn’t let that interfere with their mission. If he failed, if they failed, it might plunge the entire world into war. The loss of his wing was insignificant compared to that, to the feeling of crushing humiliation and responsibility and despair if he failed, if he allowed the Night Queen to resurrect Sombra. If that happened, all the misery that came after, all the pain, all the loss, it would be his fault. His responsibility. It would make how he felt right now feel like a gallop through a field of wildflowers by comparison.

He would give himself tonight to wallow in his misery. But when the sun rose, when the crippled thestral was replaced by the unicorn, then it would be time to put his selfishness away and think about more than just himself.

But…he couldn’t let himself feel too sorry for himself, else the Night Stone might seize the opportunity as he succumbed to powerful emotion and reconnect to him. And that might be catastrophic, because it very well might kill him.

But in a way, he now felt like a kindred spirit to it. Now he knew what it was like to have a hole bored through his life, through his soul, to feel the pain and the despair of losing something precious to him. Long ago, the Night Stone had lost the Lykans that had spoken to it, and had suffered for centuries in isolated, terrible loneliness and loss. Perhaps…he and the Night Stone could console one another when he retrieved it.

Only time would tell.

But, there was one thing in all this that he couldn’t ignore or deny. He had lost, but he had also gained, and all he had to do to be reminded of that was to look at Summer Dawn. She was standing by him even more fiercely that before because of his lost wing, displaying the loyalty and love that he had always hoped to find in a mare. She didn’t care that he was a Lykan, and now she didn’t care that he had been disfigured. She understood better than any pony or creature that couldn’t fly just what he had lost, how integral flying had been in his life, and she was doing everything she could to console him and support him.

If anything, being sentenced to spend the rest of his life on the ground meant that he would be closer to her…and that made this bearable.

It was a long night for all of them.

For Moonshade, it was a long night of hard flying after barely getting any rest the day before. She had put on as much speed as she could manage the entire night, both getting as much distance between them and Crystallon as possible—the King could teleport, that made him a viable threat if he decided to chase them down himself—and to get them to the Nightlands as fast as she could. They absolutely had to reach the Nightlands and find a place to hole up for the day, because a unicorn with fangs and thestral eyes was a dead giveaway for a Lykan, so he could not be seen by any thestral while the sun was up. For Starjumper, it was a long night dealing with both his loss and his healing injury, which was healing at a vastly accelerated rate thanks to the elixirs he drank every four hours throughout the night. Each one initially flushed him with warm, painless serenity, then that feeling slowly wore off and a dull pain and itching set into the wounds as they healed. But, the effect was unmistakable and impressive, for the deep slash across his shoulders almost completely closed over the night, and the charred burn of the cauterized stump of his wing healed over with natural skin and fur. The pain of the wound slowly ebbed over the night, and by the time they crossed over into the Nightlands about an hour before dawn, he was almost completely healed. He only had a faint ache in his shoulders and he could feel a twinge of pain if he moved his forelegs or remaining wing the wrong way. For Summer Dawn, the night was a major test of her magical endurance, as she kept both herself and Starjumper levitated for hour after hour through the night. She was a powerful magician, but using that much magic for that long was something that not even Princess Celestia could pull off easily. She was starting to visibly tire by midnight, and she talked less and less as the effort started to wear her down. By the time they crossed into the Nightlands, she was breathing heavily and her face was drawn, drained. She wasn’t going to last much longer.

That was what spurred him to have Moonshade land. Summer Dawn had to rest or she was going to pass out, and Moonshade could do with a break as well. Summer Dawn’s magic did finally give out just as Moonshade set hoof on a wide, rocky ledge on a steep mountainside, a place nopony could reach unless they could fly or walk on walls. Summer Dawn immediately flopped onto her belly on the rock, trying to catch her breath, and Starjumper patted her on the shoulder with his hoof. “Well done, Summer. Just rest a while,” he said gently.

But his words fell on deaf ears, because she was already asleep. Having to levitate them all night had utterly exhausted her. He brushed her mane out of her face lovingly, then turned and looked to Moonshade, who was gnawing on a piece of honeyed spice bread. “The Nightlands,” Starjumper said, looking down into a deep, steep valley. “I never thought I’d see this place. We need to find a place to hole up for the day.”

“There are caves all over the place in this part of the range,” she told him. “There’s five on the other side of the valley,” she added, pointing with her hoof.

“How far are we from the Longwing village?”

“It’s at the end of the valley,” she replied, moving her hoof to point deeper into the Nightlands. “This valley opens into Unicornia, and there’s a road that merchants use to get to the village. Down there,” she pointed, and he could see the narrow road at the bottom of the valley, built alongside a shallow, fast-flowing river. The floor of the valley had winter-browned scrub brush and tough grasses growing in the rocky soil on either side of the river, as well as a few small, stout pine and aspen trees. “We have a choice, Star. We have an hour before dawn, we could go on to the village and try to get some supplies, or we can camp for the day and try just after sunset.”

“It’s best to wait until after sunset,” he replied. “Besides, Summer Dawn is completely wiped out. I don’t think we could wake her up short of dropping her into the river.”

“She’s a tough little thing,” Moonshade said approvingly. “Brave, too. You’ve got yourself a fine mare, Starjumper. Don’t blow it.”

“I don’t intend to.”

“Have your wounds healed?”

“Almost,” he answered. “I think that by tonight, I’ll be completely healed.”

“I’ll go find a suitable cave. You keep an eye on the little slip,” she said, stepping away from him and opening her wings.

He went back to Summer Dawn and sat down beside her, then brushed her long pink mane away from her eyes gently with a hoof, smiling down at her. She’d really come through like a champion, both doing her part in getting back their gear and carrying him for very nearly the entire night, working herself past exhaustion. She really was something special, and he felt both honored and humbled that a mare as amazing as she was had any interest in a stallion like him.

Especially now.

He was so glad she was here. He wasn’t sure he’d be able to do this without her, have to face losing his wing alone. With her help, her support, he knew he could push though this and they could finish their task. After all, in a way, he was doing this for her as much as for Equestria. He wanted to keep her safe, keep the world in which she lived safe, and that meant going off on this dangerous adventure to stop Sombra from being resurrected.

She really was so beautiful.

He settled on his belly beside her, waiting for Moonshade to return, content to watch over the mare he loved as she slept, to keep her safe, and draw strength from her presence. When this was all over, he was going to do what she wanted. He was going to stay in Canterlot, in his hidden cave on the side of the cliff, so he could be close to her as she embarked on her quest to learn everything she could about magic. He would guide her down that path as long as he could, teach her everything he knew, and when he reached the end of that road, he would gladly follow down the road that she forged beyond it. Eventually, he would become her student, and when that happened, he would be as happy to learn from her as she seemed to enjoy learning from him. They would walk that path together, him to the extent of his ability, and then he would watch her go far beyond him, watch her bloom and flourish, grow into one of the most powerful unicorn magicians Equestria had ever seen.

And he would be so, so proud of her.

Magic…it was all he had left, now. Without his wing, unable to fly, all that was left in his life that interested him was magic. Maybe…maybe if he studied enough, he might find a way to restore his wing. Mender had said that it was beyond his ability to restore his wing…maybe that meant that for some other pony, maybe it wouldn’t be beyond their ability. He wasn’t as powerful in magic as Summer Dawn, but he was a good magician. Maybe, maybe he could find a spell, find a recipe for a potion, that did have that kind of restorative power. He certainly couldn’t count on it, couldn’t allow himself to become convinced that magic could restore his wing and thus become obsessed with the idea, but it was worth investigation.

If he could find magic to restore his wing, he’d be overjoyed. But he always had to keep in mind and be ready to accept the fact that he might not. He had to be able to accept this new reality in his life, else his desire to regain what he lost ruin what life he had left. He could hope to find a way to restore his wing, but be ready to accept reality if that search came up empty.

But the idea of it did give him hope, and right now, with the pain of the loss still a wound in his soul, it made him feel a little better.

Either way, whether he restored his wing or not, he knew that without Summer Dawn, his life would be completely empty.

Moonshade returned a moment later. “I found a good one, the only down side is it's at the bottom of the valley, so that means that non-flyers can get into it. All we have to do is fortify or hide the entrance. It has a small stream running through it, so we’ll have access to water without coming out,” she told him. “You carry her, I’ll carry you.”

“Alright,” he said. He put his hooves on Summer Dawn’s armor and clung to it, allowing Moonshade to pick them both up by his saddlepack—he still wasn’t wearing his armor—felt the straps pull taut against his belly She flew them about a mile up the valley towards the village, then landed at a very narrow entrance at the base of a rocky slope that had a small stream flowing out of it. That stream meandered down the scrubby bottom of the valley and joined the main stream that flowed down the center of it. He put Summer Dawn on his back and carried her inside, having to walk through the icy cold water and then cling to the side of the wall to get up a steep rocky incline, and found a small chamber that opened up at the top of it, roughly elliptical in shape and with a fairly flat floor, flat enough to give him someplace to gently lay Summer Dawn down. He pulled out her bedroll and placed her into it, then pulled her blanket up over her. He then stepped over and took a long drink from a shallow pool formed before the stream tumbled down the steep incline, not quite a waterfall, as Moonshade squirmed out of the pack saddle and set it aside, then started taking of her armor. “We should be safe enough here, but we’ll still need to post a guard,” she said. I'll take the morning, you take the evening if the little slip hasn't recovered by then.”

“I have to stay up until after sunrise anyway, so you get some sleep,” he said. “When I get my magic back, I’ll make sure nopony can get in here before I get some rest.”

She gave him a long look, then nodded. “Alright. I’ll try to wake up as early as I can to keep watch.”

“Don’t bother. We’re all going to need as much rest as we can get with what’s coming. Just sleep, Moonshade. I promise you, nopony’s getting in here after I’m done. I’m going to narrow the entrance to the point where no pony can get in, on top of a few other spells I can cast that will last all day.”

“Alright.” She stepped over to the wall of the cavern and walked up it, then across the ceiling, until she was at the highest point in the elliptical chamber. She then hung herself from the ceiling by her tail and wrapped her wings around herself and closed her eyes. And within seconds, she too was asleep, betraying just how tired she was.

Taking a deep breath, Starjumper walked up to the edge of the pool, looking down the jagged, steep sloped with deep cuts eroded into it from the water flowing down it, then sat down and kept watch on the narrow passage at the bottom, the only way into the cave. Though he was alone with his thoughts, he was too tired to do much of anything, even feel sorry for himself. He was so tired that he had to fight to stay awake to await the sunrise. He nodded off so many times that he was honestly taken by surprise when the sunrise came, when the sunlight seemed to pierce through the rock and sear into his soul, triggering the change. The lone wing on his back turned to ash and crumbled, and then his horn tore through the skin and flesh of his forehead and twisted upon itself as it grew with magical speed, until it reached its full size. He wiped at a bit of blood that flowed down the side of his muzzle, then his horn flared with golden light, illuminating the chamber, as he set to work. He put up a charged shield at the top of the incline to keep ponies out, then he went down to the entrance and used the stone shaping spell to close the entrance to the point where only a small animal was going to get in, having to leave it open both so air could get in and so the water didn’t get dammed up. Once that was done, he returned to the chamber and set out his own bedroll, laying it beside Summer Dawn’s, and he climbed into it.

He was asleep almost the instant his head hit the rolled-up blanket that served as his pillow.

Family Ties

He awoke feeling much better…physically anyway.

The three potions he stole from Mender’s lab had been exceptionally powerful healing elixirs, on a level with the one that Princess Twilight had used on him after his battle with Moonshade, and the three of them used in succession over the night had done a world of good for him. He awoke in the midafternoon with no pain at all, at least while at rest, and moving only brought a feeling of mild discomfort, like he’d pulled a muscle. It only hurt when he moved in certain ways. He awoke to find Moonshade already awake, laying sedately on the side of the cave holding the entrance and keeping her eye on the incline, which was easy for her to do. Summer Dawn was still asleep, and hadn’t even moved since he put her in her bedroll. He checked on her after climbing out of his bedroll, took a long drink from the small pool of water in the center of the chamber, then rummaged through the packs and pulled out a chunk of honeyed spice bread, a thestral army staple of which Moonshade had packed into their supplies in prodigious amounts. He decided to join Moonshade on the side of the wall, walking over and settling in beside her, so they could talk without disturbing Summer Dawn. “When did you wake up?” he asked in a low, hushed tone.

“Just after noon,” she replied. “I’ll take a short nap before sunset. I just didn’t feel comfortable not having somepony standing watch.”

“The shield I put over the entrance won’t fade for another five hours,” he told her.

“I’m not used to magic,” she told him.

“It has its uses,” he replied, glancing over when Summer Dawn made a low mumbling sound and then rolled over in her bedroll. That was a good sign, it meant she was now sleeping naturally rather than being near-comatose in an exhausted slumber. “How long will it take to reach the village?”

“Just a few minutes after we head out,” she replied. “It’s about ten miles away, and from what I remember, it’s not all that much. The village isn’t that old, it sprung up not long after—“ she cut off, then looked over at him. “It was founded after the Night King came down on the Longwing clan after your mother ran off with your father,” she told him. “That’s why I’ll need you to talk to them. For the last ten years or so, the Longwings have all but shut themselves off from the rest of thestral society, and I have to admit, we helped that along. All the Longwings were forcibly discharged from the army, all their holdings were seized and doled out to the Night King’s allies and lackeys, and a crushing tax was levied against all commerce originating from the clan. So, the Longwings all abandoned their original villages and founded new ones on the edges of the Nightlands, getting as far away from the rest of us as possible, and they moved to basic subsistence farming and hunting to evade the commerce taxes. They don’t interact with the rest of us, their villages have become self-contained communities, and they’re nearly as hostile to us as they are to outsiders. I can’t blame them, really. I thought that my grandfather had made a poor decision when he did that, because the Longwings were an integral part of the army. We depended on them to hold the hippogryphs in check, since they can match a hippogryph’s aerial agility. But, I was just a trainee then, I didn’t have a say in anything,” she grunted.

“If they’re as hostile as you say, you can’t show up in their village wearing Night Blade armor,” he warned.

She nodded. “And the little slip has to stay hidden. Shrunk down in the bag,” she added. “If they find out we’ve got a unicorn with us, it may get messy.”

“She’s not a Theradale, so at least we have that going for us,” Starjumper grunted. He sat down, looking down but at nothing as he thought. “We should convince them to leave,” he told her. “Do you remember what the Princess said about my clan?”

She nodded. “If Sombra returns, he won’t have control over them. They’ll be the first ones he kills,” she said. “But we can’t warn them, Starjumper. For one, telling them would mean you reveal who you are, and if you don’t recall, every thestral in the Nightlands will kill you on sight,” she said firmly. “For another, it will confirm to my mother and the army that we’re here. They saw how badly you were injured, odds are they won’t think that you’re healed enough to even move, let alone get all the way here. If we alert the Longwings, we warn them that we’re here, and that means it makes it that much harder for us to get there.”

She was right. He was so worried about his clan that it blinded him to the reality of their situation. “We have to do something,” he fretted. “I’ve never met them, but they’re my clan, Moonshade. My family. Even if they do hate me, I have a duty to try to protect them.”

“You truly are a Longwing, Starjumper,” she said approvingly. “But I don’t really see what we can do other than take the Night Stone before they’re in danger. That’s really the only way we can help right now.”

“I guess so…but I don’t have to like it,” he said quietly.

They moved back to the floor of the cavern and went over the route, and then Moonshade went back to sleep to let Starjumper keep watch. He spent the time in quiet contemplation, trying his hardest not to think about his wing, instead thinking over all the potential possibilities that might come about from this mission, from them failing and Sombra being resurrected to them thwarting the Night Queen but him being unable for some reason to move the Night Stone. Moonshade’s description of the village also made him realize that Moonshade was right about not warning them about what was going on. If they found out what the Night Queen was up to, the Longwings might complicate things by attacking the Cathedral of Night before they got there, which introduced a real danger to their plans. And Moonshade was right in that the best way they could help the Longwings was to accomplish their mission. After all, if their plan worked, the Night Stone would be spirited away, protecting it from the Night Queen, and thus protecting his clan from Sombra.

He thought about it while waiting for the sun to set, long enough for Summer Dawn to finally stir, awakened by him rummaging through the packsaddle to make sure they refilled all their waterskins. “Mmmm, what time is it?”

“About an hour before sunset,” Starjumper replied, and his voice caused Moonshade to stir above, the rustling of her wings audible as she unwrapped them from around her body. “You can sleep a little while longer, Summer. You too, Moonshade.”

“No, it’ll take us a while to get ready,” the thestral said, dropping from the ceiling and landing beside Summer Dawn. “Besides, I’m hungry.”

“Me too. I can’t believe I slept all day,” Summer Dawn groaned. “I feel so stiff.”

“That’s normal for sleeping like the dead,” Starjumper chuckled. “But still, Summer, I’m so proud of you for lasting almost the entire night. You are truly something special.”

“Aww. Thank you, Star,” she said with a gentle smile.

“Let’s eat first, then get ready to move out. It should nearly be sunset by the time we’re ready,” Moonshade called.

She was right. By the time they finished eating, packing up, and gearing up, it was nearly sunset. Moonshade had her armor off, shrunk down and packed away, so she looked decidedly different to him as Summer Dawn helped her put on the packsaddle, much less intimidating. Moonshade was actually an attractive mare, in the thestral way, but it wasn’t always easy to see since she was almost always covered in armor. Starjumper also decided not to wear armor, so as to not to look threatening to the thestrals, wearing only his saddlebags.

Since they were inside the cave and his clock was destroyed, he was honestly surprised when the moon rose, its light seemingly going through the walls of the cave and piercing him to his soul. And again, the transformation seemed empty, incomplete, because of his lost wing, because he felt nothing from the wing that he had lost. He refused to look back as Summer Dawn cleaned the blood off his sides and face with a rag, folding back his remaining wing and preparing to endure his second night being less than whole. “How do you want to do this, Moonstar?” Moonshade said deliberately, getting into the practice of addressing him by that name.

“I…I think I’ll just walk to the village, but we can’t do it from this direction. It’ll look like I came in from Unicornia,” he said. “I’ll need you to carry me around so I can approach from the other side. Summer, go ahead and open up the cave for us so we can get out, then shrink down and get in the pack. Remember, most thestrals don’t like unicorns, so stay hidden unless you think somepony’s about to get hurt.”

“Are you sure?”

He nodded. “I’ll be fine, I promise,” he told her.

Moonshade carried him well around the village, flying very low through a series of connected valleys to stay out of sight, then she set him down well down a narrow valley with a fast-moving river in it that led from the village deeper into the Nightlands. From there, it took them about ten minutes to walk to the village, which sat at the end of the valley on a raised plateau that was cut in half by the river flowing down the middle of it, forming a narrow gorge that widened into the valley from which they came. The village consisted of a series of cave entrances along the sides of the valley that all opened up to the flat area, each cave entrance covered over by a leather or hide flap—which made him glad Summer Dawn was hiding in the bag—and there were several small stalls or work benches in the flat area on either side of the gorge. The smell of blood and fresh meat was strong at the entry to the village, proving Moonshade right in her statement that these thestrals hunted to survive, and there were only three thestrals visible as he walked up the steep incline that held the road and entered the village proper. All three thestrals gave them a long, suspicious look, then one of them flew over and landed in front of them. He was a very large stallion with a slate gray coat and raven black mane and tail, his main cut short and his tail long, in the thestral tradition. “Hold,” he said in Thestralla. “Outsiders are not welcome in this village. Go back.”

“Not even clan?” Starjumper asked, opening his remaining wing to demonstrate that he was a Longwing. The larger stallion gave him an empathetic look. “I don’t want to stay here, clanspony. I just want to buy as many supplies as you can spare, then we’ll be on our way.”

“What happened?” he asked, looking at where his missing wing would be.

“The army happened,” he replied stonily as he folded back his remaining wing. “I hate to be rude, clanspony, but we’re in a bit of a hurry. Do you have any supplies I can buy?”

“We don’t have much, but I think we can help you out,” he replied after a moment.

“Whatever you can spare will be greatly appreciated.” Moonshade reached into the packsaddle and pulled out a small bag of gems, which hadn’t been lost when the bag was slashed open. “We have some gems we can offer as trade, but little else.”

“We’ll have to talk to the village chieftess,” he said. “Follow me.” He opened his wings, turned, and took off, flying towards one of the cave entrances on the far side of the village. Starjumper opened his wings—

He froze, then closed his eyes with a pained expression and turned his head down and away, then slowly folded his remaining wing. Moonshade gave him an empathetic look, then she took off and put a hoof on his saddlebag strap, then lifted him off the ground and carried him up after the thestral stallion. They entered a long gallery past the cave entrance, a natural one which had been worked by the thestrals to make it more livable. They’d broken off the stalactites and stalagmites, done what they could to open up the chamber using hammers and chisels, causing the walls to show signs of both natural rock and worked stone. There were two irregular passages out of the chamber on the far end, one near the floor and one in the ceiling. There were three thestrals in the chamber, a very tall, burly mare and two very young foals. “Chieftess Starglow,” the stallion called, and that name made Starjumper gape for a split second before he recovered himself. Starglow? That was the name of his aunt! Was this his mother’s sister? Were those two foals his cousins?

The tall mare turned to look at them. She had a raven black coat and a mane and tail of dark gray with three streaks of white through it, and her cutie mark was a series of seven small stars surrounded by an irregular coma of lighter color, representing the radiance of starlight on a clear night.

Her eyes narrowed, almost dangerously, and she took a single step forward as Moonshade set Starjumper down in front of her and landed herself. “Why are you here?” she demanded.

“We only want to buy supplies, and then we will move on, chieftess,” Starjumper answered.

“Not you. You,” she amended, pointing her hoof at Moonshade. “Will I be seeing the rest of the Night Blades descending on the village, Moonblade?”

Moonshade gave her a startled look, as did Starjumper. “How did you know who I was?” she blurted.

“I was in the army,” she replied. “I met you years ago. Now why are you here, Moonblade? Using this lamed clanspony to play on our sympathies, see if we have anything worth taking?” she asked in an icy voice. “That’s an underhoofed trick, even for you.”

Moonshade gave him a helpless look, and he returned it. This was not something for which either of them had planned.

Starjumper, however, managed to recover himself, and he went with the first thing that crossed his mind. “She’s not the Moonblade anymore,” he said. “I’m surprised you didn’t hear about it.”

“We don’t talk to other thestrals,” she said stonily, almost glaring at Moonshade. “And I find that very hard to believe. The Moonblade doesn’t just quit.”

“She does when her mother gives her an order that goes against everything she believes in,” Moonshade said strongly.

“Really.”

“You can send your thestrals out to scout the surrounding mountains,” Starjumper told her. “You’ll find that we’re alone. All we want are supplies, and we’ll pay you what little we have for what you can spare. And we’ll wait for you to confirm that this isn’t a trick.”

Starglow glanced at the stallion and nodded slightly, and he turned and left the cave. “If this is no trick, should I expect an army patrol to descend on my village hunting for you?”

“That’s entirely possible,” Starjumper said honestly. “If they knew where we were.”

“Then why should I help you at all?”

“Because you are not like them,” Starjumper answered evenly. “And they have done you no favors.”

She was quiet a long moment, giving both of them a hawkish stare. “And why did you turn against your mother, Moonblade?”

“She used me and then threw me away,” she bristled. “And the less you know about what happened, the safer you are. If you knew the full truth, my mother may try so silence you the way she tried to silence me.”

Starglow gave her a long, penetrating look, but said nothing more. She then turned her gaze on Starjumper. “And who are you? I’ve never met you.”

“My name is Moonstar,” he answered. “I’m from Torn Rock.”

“I’ve never been there. How did you come to travel with her?”

“Army thestrals came to our new village and ransacked it,” he said emotionlessly. “When I tried to resist, they cut off my wing, carried me out, and then dropped me. They were laughing as I fell,” he said, his voice charged with emotion. “I landed in a river and was swept downstream. Moonshade found me, nursed me back to health, and now she’s helping me escape the Nightlands.”

“Where are you going?”

“Anywhere but here,” he answered heavily. “I can’t—I can’t stay like this. I can’t fly, I can’t hunt, and the army will kill me if they see me, so I can’t stay in the Nightlands. I have to find a groundbound town, someplace where a thestral who can’t fly anymore can find some way to make a living. Besides, if the army finds me, they’ll kill me. It’s no longer safe to be here.”

“For either of us,” Moonshade added.

“You won’t find a warm welcome going this way,” she warned.

“I’m going to Equestria,” Starjumper said. “I think if I put the sea between me and the army, they won’t find me. It’s really the only place I can think to go. The griffons and hippogryphs won’t take me in, the Theradales wouldn’t accept me, Maretonia and Magestria are too close to the Nightlands for me to feel safe. It was a choice between Saddle Arabia and Equestria, and I’m not all that fond of sand.”

“I’ll get him to Maretonia, then he should be alright the rest of the way on his own,” Moonshade added. “Then I’ll be coming back. I have unfinished business with my mother,” she said in a dark, hostile voice, her eyes narrowing dangerously.

“When you get there, go to a city called Baltimare,” Starglow told him, her voice…strange. She sounded almost remorseful. “There’s a thestral that lives there. Her name is Nightsong. She can help you.”

“I’ve heard that name. I think I’d rather take my chances with the ponies. I don’t want help from her,” Starjumper said harshly. “She betrayed the thestral race.”

“Be careful what you say about my sister,” she said suddenly, glaring down at him.

That settled it. This was his aunt. He looked up at her, trying to keep the emotion out of his expression as he took his first real look at somepony that he knew was family. He never thought he’d ever see a thestral relative outside of his mother and sister…and he wasn’t exactly sure how to feel about it. She seemed protective over his mother, but there was no telling if that sentiment extended to him. And besides, she’d never so much as sent his mother a letter, for years and years and years. That hinted to him that Starglow had disowned her sister…yet the heat in her voice as she defended her to him was unmistakable.

The stallion returned before he could reply, landing at the cave mouth and trotting in. “They weren’t lying,” he announced. “There are no soldiers anywhere near the village. They’re alone.”

“Then we can get back to the matter at hoof,” Starjumper said. “We don’t have much. A couple of gems, a few things we might offer for trade. We just need enough food to get us to Maretonia, maybe two days’ worth,” he said, looking up at the taller mare. “Are you going to help us, or not?”

She was quiet a long moment, her gaze shifting from him to Moonshade several times, then snorted audibly. “Alright. We’ll take the gems you have in return for two days’ worth of food,” she announced. “All we have is blackcap bread. The hunting has been very poor.”

“We don’t really care what it is, as long as it’s edible,” Moonshade said simply.

Starjumper felt something tugging at his foreleg, and looked down to see one of Starglow’s foals pulling at him with his hoof, clinging to him. It didn’t register to him for a long second what the foal was doing, and when he did, he bent his forelegs with a hiss of pretend pain. “Chieftess, can you get him to let go?” he asked. But when he looked up at her, he saw her eyes wide, her mouth open, and she took a step back from him.

“Starjumper?” she blurted.

He was too late. She saw that the foal didn’t pull at his skin and fur, because he was blood related to his cousin.

Moonshade turned quickly and squared off against the stallion, who looked confused, and Starjumper very nearly took hold of the foal as a hostage. But she didn’t charge him, she didn’t try to rip his throat out with her fangs, she just stared at him in shock. Her speaking his name had incited yet another reaction, when Summer Dawn lifted out of Moonshade’s saddlebag and quickly returned to full size, her horn glowing with pink magic as she took her place at his side.

“What is going on here, Starjumper? What are you doing here?” she demanded. “And why are you with the Moonblade and a unicorn?”

“I’m not who you think I am,” Starjumper said.

“I know what I saw,” she said simply. “Blacktree, let go of him and go to your room,” she ordered of the foal.

“Okay, mommy,” he said, taking his hoof off Starjumper’s leg. He tensed up, expecting her to attack the instant her foal was out of the way, but she just stood there.

“Are you insane, nephew?” she demanded once the foal was out of the way. “You shouldn’t be here! You have to leave, right now!”

“Where do you think we’re going, Aunt Starglow?” he replied. “We just need food, and we’ll be gone from here.”

“What are you doing here? Why are you here?” she asked.

“I can’t tell you, but I can promise you, I’m not here to shatter the Night Stone,” he answered. “We just need enough food to get to Maretonia. That’s all. Just give us that, and we won’t bother you again.”

He tensed up when she stepped up to him, then she put a hoof on his shoulder. “How is Nightsong? Is she happy?” she asked in a soft, regretful voice.

“She’s happy,” he answered. “She’s very happy.”

She gave a wan smile. “I’m glad to hear it,” she said. “Highwing, go get enough loaves to last all three of them two days,” she ordered the stallion.

“What’s going on, chieftess?”

“Trust me,” she replied. When he was gone, she looked down at him again, her expression much softer. “Now explain what’s going on, Starjumper. Why you’re with the Moonblade and this unicorn.”

“Her name is Summer Dawn,” he said, and she looked over at him when he said her name. “And I can’t tell you what’s going on, aunt. It’s best for everypony if all you know is what we’ve already told you.”

“Did they do this to you?” she asked, pointing at his lost wing.

“I can’t tell you. I’m sorry to be so deceptive, aunt, but I’m protecting you as much as I’m protecting us. I don’t want the army to fall on your village, they won’t be any kinder to you than they were to me. I wouldn’t even be here putting you at risk now if I had any other choice. But I don’t. We’re almost out of food, and it’s a long way back to Equestria. We’re desperate,” he said simply. “It’s safest for everypony if you simply give us the food, take our gems in payment, and let us go. If the army comes, you can be honest when you tell them what happened. The only thing you have to leave out is, well, this.”

“Star?” Summer Dawn asked. She had no idea what they were saying, and was probably getting anxious.

“Hold on, Summer,” he told her in Ponish. “And stand down. She’s not going to attack.”

“She knows who you are.”

“He’s my nephew, unicorn,” Starglow said in fairly decent Ponish. “And family does not attack its own.”

“Even when that family is a Lykan?” Starjumper asked directly, switching to Ponish.

“You gave me your word you weren’t here to shatter the Night Stone. That’s good enough for me,” she said simply. “I’m not entirely sure what’s going on here, but I’ll trust you, nephew.”

“What about the stallion? He heard you call my name.”

“That’s my husband, Starjumper. He won’t say a word.”

“Oh. I had no idea,” he said, looking back at the cave entrance. “He didn’t act like he’s your husband.”

“I’m the chieftess, he treats me with proper decorum in front of strangers,” she replied with a slight smile, a fang peeking out under her lip. “If you’re going through Unicornia, nephew, you must be very careful. They very well may attack you.”

“They already did,” he told her. “But we don’t have any choice. We have to get back to Equestria fast, and that’s the shortest route.”

She nodded, then gave him a long look. “I can see Nightsong in you, nephew,” she said, a bit wistfully.

“Why haven’t you written? Uncle Shadowstep sends letters.”

“It’s a long story, and not a very kind one. The simple truth is, the anger I felt when she left faded years ago, but now I’m certain she wants nothing to do with me. Some very harsh things were said, Starjumper,” she sighed. “I tried to talk her out of it, and we got into an argument. I said—“ she turned away, closing her eyes. “I’m not proud of what I said,” she told him. “If Shadowstep hadn’t been there, we very well may have tried to kill each other. I doubt she’s forgiven me for that. My anger only grew after the Night King stripped us of our property, forced us out into the hinterlands, but I’ve come to realize that it wasn’t her fault that happened. The Night King was a petty tyrant and a scoundrel, and the quality of the throne has not improved since his daughter took it from him.” She gave Moonshade a look, almost challenging.

“My own mother is trying to kill me, Starglow. I’m not going to challenge you over the truth,” Moonshade told her.

“It was the Night Queen that expanded the punishment of the clan, started going after thestrals who had nothing to do with what happened. She stole our goods and our lands and gave them out to her lackeys. It’s why we’ve ended up here, within sight of Unicornia, where no other thestrals want to live,” she said bitterly.

“Unicornia…you should be careful, Aunt Starglow,” Starjumper told her. “We had a major run-in with them on the way here, and no doubt we’ll have to all but fight our way through Unicornia on the way out. They very well may try to invade the Nightlands.”

“Why?”

“The King there wants the Night Stone, and I think he’s capable of trying to invade the Nightlands to get it,” he told her. “This village is literally right on the road he’d have to use to do that. So you should keep a close eye on the border, and if you see the unicorn army marching in, get out of the way.”

“Seriously?” she asked, looking at Moonshade.

She nodded. “I wouldn’t put it past them,” she agreed.

“But, they’d be stuck at the first mountain they reached.”

“They’re Theradales, Aunt. If they get close enough to the Night Stone, its magic is going to affect them, the way it did back in the olden times, before they were driven out of the Nightlands. They’ll gain clinging magic when they get close enough, which will allow them to get deeper into the Nightlands.”

“That seems outlandish, nephew.”

“Trust me, Starglow, I’m not lying,” he warned. “We learned about this in Equestria. And I shouldn’t explain any more, it may put you in danger.”

“And what role does this Magestrian play, nephew?” she asked, looking at Summer Dawn. “Is Magestria allying with the Theradales?”

“I’m from Equestria, ma’am, not Magestria,” Summer Dawn told her. “I came along to help Star and Moonshade.”

“We wouldn’t have gotten this far without her,” he said fondly, looking down at her.

Starglow gave her a long look as her husband returned, carrying a large burlap sack. “I have the supplies, chieftess,” he called.

“Thank you, Highwing,” she said as Moonshade took the bag from him and stuffed it in her saddlebag. She then set the small pouch holding the gems they had on a nearby table. “Now if you please, wait for us down on the commons. They’ll be down in just a moment.”

He nodded, then turned and left the cave. “Is there anything else I can do, nephew?” she asked. “I can send a couple of clansponies with you.”

“It’s best for all of us if you just let us go, Aunt Starglow, we’ll be alright,” he told her. “And pretend that this never happened. But, I think it’s about time you wrote a letter to mother. I think she’d very much love to hear from you.”

Her eyes softened, and she stepped up and gave Starjumper a brief, fierce hug. “Be careful out there, Starjumper,” she told him. “And I’m happy I finally got to meet you.”

“Me too, Aunt Starglow,” he replied. “I hope to be reading a letter from you very soon.”

“That’s a promise. Now you’d better go.”

“I was about to say the same thing. We have a long way to go, and we don’t want you to put you in any more danger than we already have.”

“What is danger to a thestral, nephew?” she smiled.

She didn’t see them out, maintaining the illusion that they were just travelers, though she did watch in interest as Summer Dawn shrunk herself back down and returned to the carry pack. Highwing as well didn’t say anything when Moonshade carried him down to the flat area at the base of the village. “Be very careful out there, clanspony,” he said in concern. “It’s a dangerous time to be a Longwing in the Nightlands.”

“Don’t I know it,” he agreed with a nod. “Be well, clanspony, and thank you.”

“Safe travels.”

He and Moonshade started down the narrow, twisting road descending down into the valley, and once they were out of sight and sure they weren’t being watched, Summer Dawn shrunk Starjumper and brought him into the pack, and Moonshade took off. She flew nearly back into Unicornia as she circled the village, staying under the peaks so she couldn’t be easily seen, then she put herself on course to reach the first of their planned stopping points within the Nightlands. The first was only about twenty miles from the border, a small cave that Moonshade knew about that was very well hidden. They were going to lay over there long enough for Summer Dawn and Starjumper to be able to teleport back to it, then she’d fly on to the next one, which was about forty miles away. There they would lay over for the day, since flying in the Nightlands was nowhere near as fast and easy as it had been flying over the ocean or the relatively flat Maretonia. Moonshade would be flying below the peaks most of the time to stay hidden, flying a zigzagging route that would actually be much further than forty miles, even though it was only forty miles from the first cave to the second cave in a straight line. It would take them most of the night just to go those sixty or so miles, and no doubt Moonshade would be tired by the time they got there. Flying in the cold, thin air of the Nightlands in the winter was a very demanding and draining endeavor.

And that was if they ran into no trouble. It was entirely possible that they would, since the Night Queen knew they were coming. Their only advantage in this was that Starjumper had been so badly wounded that the thestrals may believe him incapable of moving for several days.

The air coming through the mesh was definitely cold. It was bitterly cold, arctic, and would have frozen them to death in seconds in their shrunken state if not for their heat stones. Starjumper laid by the mesh window, looking out over the rugged mountainsides of the Nightlands, which were some of the steepest, highest, most inhospitable peaks in the entire world of Equus. The only places for thestrals to live in this extreme terrain were small, narrow plateaus formed where several mountains met and along the gorge-like valleys between them, which were thousands of feet lower than the peaks and whose bottoms were filled with icy cold, fast-moving streams and small rivers. Virtually any flat space in the Nightlands was purposed by the thestrals for living space or farming space, if it was low enough to be below the freeze line, though many thestrals settlements were built on the sides of the mountains, made up of caves or buildings anchored to the steep walls.

“I can’t really see anything,” Summer Dawn said in a low voice as she laid down beside him. “It’s too dark.”

“You’re not missing a whole lot,” he told her. “From what I remember, this stretch of the Nightlands is uninhabited, both because it borders Unicornia and because there’s not enough here to support a thestral community. No doubt my aunt’s village just barely scrapes by on what they can forage and what they can hunt.”

She shuddered. “I am so glad they didn’t give us any dead animals,” she said.

“Meat’s too precious to sell,” he replied. “There’s not much out here, Summer, at least on this side of the Nightlands. Even finding a rabbit is a stroke of luck. Most likely, the village thestrals sneak over into Unicornia and hunt along the foothills, which is a dangerous proposition. The southern and eastern sides of the Nightlands are lower, with lots of land below the freeze line, so there are trees there, and animals. The northern and western stretches of the Nightlands are all like this, high, jagged mountains with little more than bare rock.”

“What about the center?”

“The Frostmoon Plateau is there, and it’s where the thestrals have most of their settlements,” he answered. “The plateau is below the freeze line to the south but above it to the north, so it’s almost all farmland on one side and a city on the other. The thestrals fly out to the farms to work them during the summer. The only real thestral city is there, which is also called Frostmoon, named after the plateau.”

“Sounds like we’d better avoid it.”

He nodded. “Moonshade’s route has us going through the most rugged parts of the Nightlands, because they’re virtually uninhabited,” he told her. “If we’re lucky, we can get to the Cathedral of Night without seeing a single thestral, civilian or army.”

“I hope so.” She was quiet a moment. “So that was your aunt, hmm? What did you think of her?” “She reminded me of Mother in a few ways,” he replied musingly. “I’m glad I met her, truth be told. I thought I’d never get the chance to meet any of my other family…thought I always thought it would be Uncle Shadowstep.”

“Do you really think the King will invade?”

“I think he’s mad enough to try,” he answered. “He had me in his hooves, then I slipped away. He knows where I’m going, he very well may try to invade the Nightlands so his forces are in a position to capture us when we start back for Equestria, to take Night Stone from me.”

“But Moonshade can fly. We go much faster,” she protested, then she bit her lip and looked away. “And he knows that we can teleport.”

“He doesn’t know how far we can teleport,” he told her. “Remember, Summer, most ponies that can teleport can’t go very far, because they don’t really understand how the spell works. Not like we do,” he said simply. “Even unicorns capable of using the magic think they can’t go further than across town using it. They have no idea that a pony can teleport miles, dozens of miles, if they know what they’re doing. I’d bet that the King will picket forces at strategic points all through the Nightlands and Unicornia to try to catch us as we come back. He has no idea that you can teleport halfway across Unicornia in one spell. He has no idea how powerful you are, Summer. None of them do,” he said proudly.

“I’ll do what I can, because I know it will keep you safe, Star,” she said, leaning her head against his neck.

“I’m much more interested in keeping you safe, silly mare,” he told her gently.

The first part of the night passed without incident, at least until after they stopped in a small cave to eat and to rest. The small cave was the first of Moonshade’s planned stops, one of the points to which Summer Dawn would teleport when they had the Night Stone. Because of that, both she and Starjumper spent nearly an hour carefully studying the small cave, until they were both confident they could teleport to it safely. “I was planning on spending the day here, but that plan is out the window,” Moonshade said as they packed their things. “We’re not going to reach the next point before sunrise. I know of another place we can stop when the sun rises, not nearly as comfortable as the next stop, but it will get us through the day without being seen.”

“I’m not surprised, mother said there are thousands of small caves along this stretch of the Nightlands,” Starjumper said.

“Yeah, just none of them are big enough to be more than cracks in the walls,” Moonshade agreed.

Just before Summer Dawn shrunk the two of them down, they heard the leathery flap of wings outside the cave, then the sound of metal-shod hooves on the stone. Summer Dawn reacted incredibly fast, and hastily shrunk the three of them down. They ran forward and got behind a protrusion on the floor. They then heard another set of metal-shod hooves hit stone, and then voices.

“Anything, Private?” a voice asked in Thestralla.

“I thought I saw pink light, but I guess not. There’s no light in the cave. I don’t see anypony, but I can smell three scents. Two thestrals, one unicorn,” the reply came. “I think they were here, Corporal. The report said they had a unicorn with them.”

“How fresh?”

“Very. I don’t think they left the cave more than a few minutes ago,” he replied.

“They have that unicorn, check the cave to make sure they’re not hiding in it using magic,” the second said, his voice disgusted. “What foul magic did the unicorns use on the Moonblade to make her betray her own kind like this?”

“Hopefully we can undo it,” the first said. Starjumper peeked around the protrusion a tiny bit, he saw a thestral soldier stepping inside the small cave. He looked around carefully as a second soldier waited outside. Summer Dawn had a clear look of fear on her face, but she held absolutely still behind the rock, didn’t even flinch when the soldier’s armored hoof came down past the rock, barely six inches from her and Moonshade. Starjumper looked up and saw the soldier looking to the left, to the right, then upwards—thestrals looked up where few other ponies did—then his hoof lifted and pulled away as he started to turn around. “Nopony here, Corporal,” he reported.

“Very good, Private. They can’t have gotten far. Let’s report back to the Sergeant that we found their scents. He’ll know what to do.”

“Yes, sir,” he replied, his voice fading. The three of them held still until they heard the sound of leathery wings, then both Starjumper and Moonshade looked over the rock and saw they were gone.

“Fast thinking, little slip,” Moonshade said approvingly. “You saved us from a fight.”

“Maybe we should have, they had to have supplies,” Starjumper said as he continued to look out the entrance.

“First rule of searching. When your searchers go missing, you know where your quarry is,” Moonshade said. “The first time they missed their check in, we’d have had an entire company of soldiers swarming the area.”

“Oh. I didn’t think of that.”

“You’re a good fighter, but you’re not a soldier,” she told him honestly. “Let’s wait a few minutes for them to clear the valley, then move out. They’ll come back to see if they can pick up our trail, so we can’t be here when they do. Just much more carefully,” she grunted. “No doubt they have patrols out in addition to the search parties. That’s going to complicate things.”

“And the closer we get to the Cathedral of Night, the more patrols there will be,” Summer Dawn predicted.

“Just so, little slip. I may have to change our plan,” she said absently. “But it’s going to slow us down.”

“We don’t have time to waste, Moonshade,” Starjumper said.

“The key to getting there is avoiding fights, Star, and we’re not going to do that staying out in the open,” she said. “About half a day’s flight from here is a cave system. A very, very big cave system. It runs through most of the western Nightlands. I know a way through that will bring us out only about thirty miles from the Cathedral, but the downside to that is that it’s going to be a dangerous trip…or maybe not,” she said, looking at Summer Dawn. “There are places where the passage is so small that we’d have to wriggle to get through, but if the little slip can shrink us in those places, we can move much faster. We’ll lose about a day going through the caves, but we’ll be much, much harder to find.”

“It won’t work,” Summer Dawn said before Starjumper could say the same thing.

“Why not?”

“We can’t use the cave as a jump point when we teleport out,” Starjumper explained. “Trying to teleport through that much solid rock would be prohibitively dangerous. If either of us makes a mistake, it could kill all of us. We’d be displaced through so much solid rock to reach an empty space that we’d be nothing but ashes by the time we reappeared.”

“I thought you were good at teleporting.”

“I am, but I’m also not reckless,” he replied bluntly. “But if you recall, I’m not the one getting us out of here. She is. And trying to teleport into a cave deep inside a mountain is too dangerous for her. She doesn’t have that much experience.”

“Oh. Oh, alright. I keep forgetting that,” she said. “She does all the other magic you taught her so well, I forgot she hasn’t known how to teleport very long.”

“Well, I’ll take that as a complement,” Summer Dawn chuckled.

“But, I think we can still use my idea, by coming up to a surface entrance and letting her use that as a jump point, where it will be safe for her to teleport,” she said. “Like I said, the cave system is extensive, it opens to the outside in dozens and dozens of places. We can move through the caves, then come up and let her memorize a cave entrance. The drawback of that plan is that it’s going to slow us down even more.”

“So, we have a choice between having to fight our way to the Cathedral or go through the caves, which will cost us time,” Starjumper grunted.

“We’re out of healing tonic, Star,” Summer Dawn said. “I think Moonshade’s idea is the safer path. Besides, if we’re in the caves, we can keep moving even during the daytime. Moonshade can give us directions and sleep while we carry her.”

“You said it’s extensive. Would it be possible for us to fly between cave entrances and then move underground in some places? That way we make up some time flying, yet we still disappear underground and make it harder for the soldiers to find us.”

“Hmm,” she said. “I…think so. I know where the entrances are, and I think I can guide us to the right ones. We surface, fly a little while where I think it’s safest, then go back underground. We can take the caves through the places I’d be the most exposed when I’m flying, which would be where I think they’d have the most patrols, then we can fly in the places I’ll have the most cover. I think that would work, Star,” she nodded.

“It sounds good to me,” Summer Dawn agreed.

“With you and the little slip using magic to speed us up through the caves, the soldiers wouldn’t believe we’d go that fast if they see us go into the caves,” Moonshade added. “That gives us an advantage.”

“Then it sounds like we have a plan, and we’ve waited long enough. Unshrink Moonshade and let’s get moving, Summer.”

“Okay. Ready, Moonshade?”

“Ready.”

It was a fairly nerve-wracking hour as Moonshade flew very low in the valleys between the peaks, always staying close to the walls so she could land and hide if thestrals appeared over the valley sides, until she reached a narrow crack in the side of a mountain, near the valley floor. “Here’s the first cave,” she declared as she stepped inside, addressing them inside the bag. “Just stay inside and shrunk, this cavern is fairly large. We’ll follow it about fifteen miles, and it comes out in a valley to the east, not far from a village. Little slip, you’re not going to be able to see at all,” she warned. “Once we get inside the cave, it’ll be pitch black for you. It’s important that you do not make any light. Even the light you’d make in the bag will interfere with my ability to see. And keep your voice down, I’ll be relying on my ears once we get deep inside the cave. When you’re shrunk, your voice creates a chittering that interferes with my ability to hear echoes.”

“How can she see in the pitch black?” Summer Dawn asked Starjumper as the thestral soldier started into the cavern. “You said that even thestrals can’t see in complete darkness.”

“Your eyes can’t see the light she’ll see,” he answered. “Thestral eyes don’t only see some colors that ponies can’t see, we can also see light that ponies can’t see. These caverns are filled with lichens and other cave-dwelling plants that give off that kind of light, that ponies can’t see. She’ll move into the cavern and wait about ten minutes or so for her eyes to adjust to seeing that light, then she’ll start out. It’s not going to be bright as day deep inside the cave for her, there will be places where she’ll be as blind as we are, but that’s when her other senses take over. She’ll guide herself through the blind areas by hearing, touch, and smell. Her hearing will warn her if she gets too close to a rock wall or stalactite because of the echoes of her hoofsteps off of it. Her sense of smell will tell her which passage has fresher air, and if there’s any movement of air, she’ll feel it on the membranes of her wings.”

“Wow. That’s neat,” she said in an impressed voice.

“Thestrals are well suited for delving the deep caves, Summer,” Starjumper told her easily. “Now, we have to get away from the window, get on the other side close to Moonshade’s side, and tie ourselves down. She very well may have to walk upside-down, and we don’t want to get flung all over the place in here.”

Moonshade ventured well into the cave, then did as Starjumper predicted, she stopped and waited for her eyes to completely adjust. His did as well, the utter darkness slowly giving way to a very dim illumination that cast the cave in shades of less-dark that he couldn’t describe to a pony that couldn’t see them, cast by a light that ponies couldn’t see at all that was radiating from colonies of lichens on the walls. In that light, he could see no detail, just rough shapes and contours…but that was all that Moonshade would need to see to navigate the cave. The cave was quiet, with only the sound of Moonshade’s hooves on the rock echoing off the walls, or the sound of her wings when she flew in areas where the chambers of the cavern were large enough to give her room to do so. Summer Dawn stayed quiet, tied down inside the bag right beside him, her head against his neck…in this cave of sensory deprivation, where she couldn’t make light or even speak because it may interfere with Moonshade, all she had was the feel of him against her.

But the way wasn’t completely easy. There were areas where Moonshade had to wriggle through narrow cracks and fissures or crawl through tight passages, often crushing the bag and forcing the two of them back away from the window, and the way was not horizontal. Her ability to cling to things was critical in a place like this, where she was often walking up or down vertical shafts, and as he predicted, there were several times when she walked upside-down over the roof, mainly to avoid deep water. Water was a common feature in the deep caves. There were times when she waded through shallow water on the floor, and times when she avoided the water by walking in the walls or roof.

There was one reprieve, a little past midnight. Moonshade stopped in a passage and had them come out. “This is one of the jump points,” she informed them. “Actually, it’s a small cave just up the passage from here. We’ll stay here only long enough for you two to be able to teleport back. How long will that take?”

“About an hour or so,” Starjumper replied.

“We can have lunch while we’re out,” Summer Dawn said. “I’m getting hungry, and it’s hard to eat when you’re moving through the caves.”

“Then let’s break out the blackcap bread.”

After the meal and enough time for the two of them to memorize the cave, Moonshade got them moving again. However, the trip ran into a slight snag barely half an hour after they got under way again. Starjumper became aware of a tiny spot of visible light coming through the mesh window on the far side of the bag, and almost at the same time, they heard Moonshade curse. “A ghostflower,” she growled. “Starjumper, shut your eyes.”

“What’s a ghostflower?” Summer Dawn whispered.

“A kind of magical flower that only grows deep in caves. It gives off visible light. The ghostflower will mess with our vision, make Moonshade stop for a while for her eyes to re-adjust after she gets far enough away from it.”

“Oh. Can’t she just step on it or something?”

“That wouldn’t stop it from glowing. They even glow when they’re picked, and they glow for days and days. The magic that makes them glow fades very slowly once they’re picked.”

“Oh. Ohhh!” she said quickly. “We have to make her stop!”

“Why?”

“That thing may be useful if thestrals come after us!” she said. “We can pick it and put it in a bag, then drop it behind us if we get chased! It’ll blind the thestrals after us!”

“That’s pretty clever,” he said approvingly. “Moonshade, stop!” he shouted, one of the prearranged signals they’d prepared. She couldn’t understand what he was saying, but the fact that he was shouting warned her that they needed out of the bag.

“Why are we stopping?” she demanded as she did so.

“Grab a sack and you do it, Summer,” he told her. “It won’t matter if your night vision gets ruined by the ghostflower.”

“Got it.” She left the bag, and a blaze of pink light flooded the chamber as she unshrunk herself. “We’re going to pick that ghostflower, Moonshade,” she told her. “And stuff it in a bag so the light doesn’t bother you. That way if thestrals chase us into the deep caves, we can drop it behind us to blind them.”

“Smart,” she agreed. “You do it.”

“You bet. Give me just a second.”

She returned to the pack a few minutes later, carrying the neck of the bag in her teeth to prevent the light of her magic from bothering Moonshade. She tied herself back down after sticking the bag in one of the tents sewn to the bottom of the pack. “All done,” she declared.

“Here’s hoping we don’t have to use it, but it’s good to have it, just in case. Well done, Summer.”

She leaned her head against his neck in appreciation of his compliment.

It took Moonshade the rest of the night to traverse the cave, and for him and Summer Dawn, it was like time stood still. It was hard to sleep with her so frequently going up and down walls and across the ceiling, so they were awake for most of the journey. After a time that seemed like forever packed into just a few minutes, faint visible light started filtering through the mesh on the far side of the pack’s floor. “We’re almost out,” Moonshade called. “And it’s nearly dawn. It’s too far to the next cave, we’ll have to lay over here. Go ahead and get out, both of you,” she called. They untied themselves, then Summer Dawn levitated them out and unshrunk them into a small oval chamber with a rough, irregular floor. Two passages left the chamber, one in the lower part of the floor leading down, and the other exiting nearly the top of the chamber, going up. That passage was the one that had the faint light filtering into the chamber. The passage outside wasn’t straight, it curved, which meant that nopony could stand at the entrance and see all the way down into the chamber. “It’s about thirty miles to the next cave, and the sun’s going to rise in just a few minutes,” Moonshade repeated.

“We’ve lost too much time, and they already know we’re here,” Starjumper said. “We have to keep moving.”

“They’ll be on us in seconds if I fly in the daytime,” she protested.

“You’re not going to carry us. I am,” he replied bluntly. “I’ll get us to the next teleport jump point my way, and we can rest there.”

“You can’t levitate any faster than I can fly.”

“But I can teleport far faster,” he replied, which made Summer Dawn’s eyes widen and nod vigorously. “They already know I can teleport from the fight in Canterlot. What they don’t know is how far I can go when I do it, so I’ll keep that little surprise hidden. So, what I’m going to do is keep us moving by teleporting us up as high as we can go without injuring us, then teleporting in the direction of the next rest point, and then have you guide me to it once we’re there. We can rest there and give me and Summer the chance to memorize the area so we can teleport to it, then we can move on when the moon rises. Just tell me which way to go, and I’ll get us there.”

She was quiet a long moment, then gave a single nod. “It’s worth the risk. If you do it right at sunrise, the light will limit the vision of the soldiers. But you have to go up further than that. How high up can you go?”

“As far as you say.”

“Then go up another fifteen thousand feet, that should be up high enough that you’ll be nothing but an unidentifiable tiny speck,” she told him. “Our heat stones will keep us from freezing, and if you do it fast enough, we won’t pass out from lack of air. Go up, teleport over, then teleport back down quickly. I can get us to the cave from there.”

“Summer can help there. Summer, you’ll need to use magic while shrunk,” he told her. “When I say so, put up a shield around the inside of the carry pack, one that will stop air. That will seal your air inside the shield.”

“Can’t you do the same?” she asked.

He shook his head. “I’d have to teleport the entire contents of the shield, and if I’m going thirty miles in one jump, I can’t take that much extra volume with me,” he answered. “If I was only going five or six miles, sure. But not thirty. I’d pass out when I reappeared. Moonshade, I’ll take the pack. You and Summer shrink down and get inside to give her time to work out the dimensions of the shield. Summer, make it as big as you can inside the bag, trap as much air in with you as you can. The instant I have my horn, I’ll teleport us three times. Summer, remember, three. After the third teleport, you can drop the shield, let Moonshade out, and return her to full size so she can guide me to the cave.”

“Okay.”

“Moonshade, which way do I teleport?”

“You want to go just a shade north of east northeast,” she replied. “The cave is in a narrow, twisting valley that goes between two high peaks that are shaped like ridges.”

“That’s enough to get me in the general vicinity,” he assured her. “Now let’s move the pack so you two can get ready. I’ll be teleporting as soon as the sun rises.”

They moved with skill ingrained by repetition, Summer Dawn helping Moonshade take off the pack and then settling it on Starjumper’s back, then she adjusted the straps and secured it to him. The two of them then shrunk down and got back into the carry pack, and Starjumper prepared for his task by taking deep breaths, hyperventilating so he could hold his breath as long as possible when he began. The light filtering down the tunnel got brighter and brighter over the moments, until the rising sun seemed to pierce the rock with its light and send its rays directly into his soul. That triggered the change, and he felt his remaining wing burn to ash and crumble onto the pack as his horn tore through his forehead, spinning around itself to form that iconic spiral pattern as it grew with magical speed.

The instant he felt the connection to his inner magic reform, he acted. He took in a deep, deep breath, clamped his teeth shut, then teleported blind, teleporting straight up by fifteen thousand feet. He reappeared so high over the Nightlands that he could see the curve of the horizon, could see the sun to the east. He caught himself in his own magic, levitating himself as he oriented himself east northeast, then turned just a hair more to the north, following Moonshade’s instructions. He then prepared himself for a major teleport, a fairly dangerous and exhausting one since he would be teleporting in the most inefficient way there was, measuring the power required carefully to teleport exactly thirty miles, something he could do because he had so much experience with teleportation. He had practiced for months with teleporting exact distances, so he was completely confident he could teleport thirty miles.

When he had his direction and distance firmly in mind, he defined all other aspects of the teleport and then enacted it. His horn blazed with nearly blinding magical light as he unleashed a torrent of power from within, and then he vanished in a circular burst of golden energy. He was teleporting so far that he had a fleeting impression of the otherspace through which he moved when he teleported, a sensation of hot wind flashing over his coat and mane, a shimmer of form and substance beyond the golden energy that surrounded him, isolating him from the outside as he moved through this other place, and then he reached his destination. He returned to the real world in a burst of magical light that faded quickly, and immediately caught himself before he started falling and looked down to find a landing spot to get back down to breathable air.

The peaks. He could see the peaks. Two long ridges standing side by side with a treacherous, narrow valley twisting through the space between them. He fixed his gaze on the south peak, on a ledge to the side of the snow-capped rock that was clear of snow, and then he teleported to that position. The transit was much rougher than the others, since he was teleporting to a place that he was viewing from a great distance and thus his ability to envision his landing point was severely limited, and thus it required much more energy to teleport and created more resistance than normal. A tiny waft of smoke issued from his shoulder and mane when he reappeared standing on the ledge just below the snow line. Summer Dawn and Moonshade floated out of the pack and returned to normal size, the thestral clinging to the side of the mountainside as Summer Dawn floated just in front of him, since there wasn’t enough room on the ledge for any other pony but him.

“Pretty accurate, Star,” Moonshade complemented him. “This is the valley, but we’re on the wrong end of it. The cave is about three miles that way,” she added, pointing with her hoof.

“I saw the mountains you described from the air,” he told her.

“Did you see any soldiers?”

“I was up too high,” he told her. “I couldn’t see them any more than they could see me.”

“You two shrink down and get on my tail, I’ll cling to you. I’ll carry us the rest of the way,” she told them.

He nodded without responding and cast the shrink spell on himself, feeling the effort of it, then he levitated up and burrowed his legs into the hair at the end of her tail. Summer Dawn did the same, and when Moonshade saw they were secure, she turned and vaulted off the side of the mountain, her wings keeping her aloft as she started down the valley.

“You look a little tired, Star,” Summer Dawn noted.

“Getting us here took it out of me,” he told her. “Porting to a place I can’t see and don’t know is the hardest kind of teleport, and on top of that, I had to go thirty miles.”

“I felt it a little bit in transit. I’m glad you did it, if I did, our manes would have been on fire when we reappeared,” she laughed.

“Just give it time, Summer,” he told her with a gentle smile.

It only took Moonshade about five minutes to reach the cave, and when she reached it, she had Starjumper take them in enclosed in a shield so they left no scent on the rock near the entrance to give away their presence. It was a small opening that went upwards into a fairly large chamber that was long and narrow, but sported a relatively flat floor at the back end of the chamber. The chamber was considerably warmer than the air outside, insulated by the rock.

“This isn’t bad, but that’s better,” Starjumper said without lowering the shield, pointing at a small hole in the back of the chamber. “We should stay shrunk down to make it even harder for them to find us.”

“It certainly worked against that soldier this morning,” Moonshade nodded in agreement. “He could smell us, but didn’t see us.”

“I’ll do it,” Summer Dawn offered. “You’re looking a little tired, Star.”

“I’ll be alright after some sleep,” he assured her as her horn blazed with pink magic, and then the chamber around them seemed to grow vast in a brief moment. Starjumper carried them into the small hole, which had a flat enough floor for them to make a proper camp. They unpacked their bedrolls and the food and water, then settled in for a meal before they got some rest. “How far away are we from the castle?” Summer Dawn asked.

“About sixty miles,” Moonshade answered. “It’s northeast of here. We’ll stop about halfway at another jump point, then if we’re lucky, we’ll reach a cave about ten miles from it where we prepare to go in for the Night Stone.”

“Then we might get there tomorrow,” Starjumper mused.

“That’s going to depend on if we got far enough ahead of the searchers,” she countered. “They may not have a lot of patrols out here, they probably don’t believe we could get this far this fast, thanks to you teleporting us. If there’s not many patrols, then we might get very close to the final cave tomorrow. If there are, we’ll have to move through the caves, and we’ll probably only make it to the next jump point. But no matter what, we’re a maximum of three days away. We might get there tomorrow, we might get there early on the third day. It’s going to depend entirely on how many thestrals are looking for us.”

“That’s a relief,” Summer Dawn said. “Then we get the Night Stone back to Equestria and keep it there until it’s safe to bring it back.”

“And stop your mother from resurrecting Sombra,” Starjumper added, looking at Moonshade.

“Luna make it so,” the thestral said emphatically.

The First Day

Author's Note

This tale takes place 25 years in the future compared to current canon, so it technically qualifies as an alternate universe.

All events and characters present in the series up to the end of Season 7 are part of this story's history.

The First Day

It was the end of a balmy, clear late summer night in Canterlot, very nearly sunrise. In about fifteen minutes, the sun would be raised by Princess Twilight Sparkle, and Princess Starlight Glimmer would put the crescent moon to bed. It was that time before the coming dawn that was both sleepy and shivering with impending activity, with most of Canterlot’s citizens in their homes were getting their last bits of sleep, with only sleepy shopkeepers out of doors, on their way to their shops to prepare them for the day’s business.

But not everypony awake in Canterlot was on the way to go start the day. The sleepy shopkeepers and worker pedestrians out on the streets of Canterlot were too caught up in their own musings to hear the sound of leathery wings overhead, their eyes too attuned to the magical streetlamps to see the dark figure whispering across the night sky. The figure was a rare one in Equestria had any of the ponies noticed its arrival, one of the reclusive and mysterious bat ponies—or thestrals, as they called themselves. The figure landed on a balcony of a small tower just across a grassy lawn from the fence of the Royal Palace, the tower itself on the grounds of Princess Celestia’s School for Unicorns, folding back its abnormally large, leathery wings as it pranced a bit before starting for a door leading inside. The figure was tall, long-legged, lean, with very large wings of bony spines with leathery membrane stretched between them, a clawed digit at the nexus atop them. The figure had a dual-toned coat, most of its coat a dark charcoal gray color with the back legs and rump black as the night, an irregular border just forward of its flanks with black spots that extended halfway up the figure’s sides and back. The figure had a short mane of charcoal gray hair, nearly black, which marked the figure as male. However, the figure’s tail was very long and thick, the end of it bound with a leather cord, which was a very girlish tail. But the shape of the figure’s muzzle and face made it clear that it was a male thestral, with ominous yellow eyes, large, tufted ears, and when he opened its mouth briefly to take a deep breath, he revealed fangs. On his flank, within the black part of his coat, a cutie mark of a white crescent moon pointing at an upwards angle towards a white concave four pointed star rested, the moon larger than the star, the star higher than the moon and close to his tail, which put the star on the right on his left flank and the left on his right flank.

His name was Starjumper Astra, and he was here for a very, very important reason…to go to school. He certainly didn’t want to be here, but Princess Twilight had insisted, literally had to issue a Royal command for him to come to Canterlot and study magic in Princess Celestia’s School for Unicorns. Given Starjumper grew up in the earth pony town of Baltimare, where there weren’t enough unicorns to make running a school dedicated to magic feasible, it was very nearly an annoyance to graduate from school there, then be summoned to Canterlot to go to school for another year. He had resisted Princess Twilight’s edict mightily, had even appealed to Princess Starlight to have her intercede, but his attempts had failed.

It had taken him nearly all summer to arrange this with Princess Twilight Sparkle, for if they were going to make him come here, then he had certain demands he expected to be met, and where he would live while attending school was one of them. He was not staying in a dorm with other ponies. He demanded a private apartment, and he threatened to defy the Princess if she did not accede to his wishes. But lucky for him, Princess Twilight had agreed, and arranged to have him stay in an apartment. It was her old apartment on the school grounds, and he would be using it while he was here. It had sat empty for nearly twenty five years, and for some reason she had never sold the apartment nor rented it out. It had sat here, empty and forgotten, since Princess Twilight graduated from this very same school. But for him, it was nearly perfect. It was literally on the school grounds, it had a balcony off the main living chamber that would allow him to come and go easily—he doubted he would ever use the front door—and it had the one thing he demanded in any dwelling he occupied, and that was privacy.

Starjumper wasn’t ashamed of what he was, but most ponies would not understand it, or him, and it would lead to wild rumors or even fear.

Starjumper wasn’t a typical thestral. For that matter, Starjumper wasn’t a typical anything. He was unique, he was the only one of his kind, and it was his unique nature that he was here to address, to study the subjects that would allow him to live a somewhat normal life. While he was unique, in thestral history and folklore, there was a title for him, a name, applied to ponies like him who had mixed thestral blood.

He was Cursed.

It was a simple condition to understand in some ways, but it was very difficult to understand in others. Simply put, Starjumper was both a unicorn and a thestral. His father was a unicorn, his mother was a thestral, and he had inherited both of their aspects. But due to some mysterious, unknown happenstance or condition…or curse…he could not be both at the same time. Almost like the were-ponies in old folklore, Starjumper was a thestral only so long as the moon was up, and he was a thestral in all ways, including having their magic. But when the moon was lowered and the sun was raised, Starjumper transformed into a unicorn, and he was a unicorn in all ways, including being able to use unicorn magic…at least in all ways but one. Starjumper retained a little bit of thestral magic when he was a unicorn. And when the sun was lowered and the moon raised, the cycle began again. The exception was that no matter whether he was a thestral or a unicorn, he retained his fangs and vertically slitted yellow bat pony eyes. They were the only visible thestral aspects of him that carried through to his unicorn form, and told him that at his core, he was more thestral than he was unicorn.

He wasn’t here because of his condition, though Princess Twilight expressed a great interest in it and wanted to study it and him…something else he was actively resisting. He was here because he had fairly strong magic as a unicorn that had never been “properly trained,” which was something else that Starjumper resisted vocally. His father Comet Tail had taught Starjumper quite a bit about magic, and most importantly, had taught him how to study magic on his own. As a result, Starjumper was actually a highly accomplished magician, capable of casting quite a few magic spells. Though they lived in an earth pony town that had no organized magical study, the Astra family as a whole were all quite skilled unicorn magicians, all self-taught using their private magical library. So, Starjumper took more than a little offense to the idea that he was untaught. Sure, he wasn’t taught by professional instructors in some big fancy school, but he was taught by a unicorn that really understood magic, and taught the three of his four foals all about it that could learn.

Two of Comet Tail’s foals with his thestral wife Nightsong, his older brother Silver Moon and his youngest sister Dancer, were unicorns. The fourth, his younger sister Songbird, was a thestral. Starjumper was the only Lykan in the family...the only Lykan alive in the entire world.

So, Starjumper didn’t see his year here as having much potential to be a good one. He resented being here, he resented why he was here, he resented—that was a bit strong, actually he was mildly annoyed with who made him come here, and his condition caused him to be very introverted and secretive, since most ponies that found out about his condition never failed to go completely bonkers and jump to all sorts of wild conclusions about him, at least those who didn’t know of or believe in the old stories about were-ponies. Starjumper kept his condition a secret, and the need to be back home by sunset and sunrise every day was literally the focal point around which his life revolved. He also had to keep up with two different lives, in a way, for those who saw him as a unicorn couldn’t see him as a thestral, and vice versa, so he had to remember who had seen him as what and make sure that he never crossed paths with that pony when he was the other way. While some parts of him changed significantly when he changed from thestral to unicorn and back again, his face and coat colors remained the same, and his quite unusual dual-toned coat made him easily identifiable even if he did or didn’t have a horn, or wings, or his cutie mark changed from his thestral moon to his unicorn star.

Starjumper had two different cutie marks. The crescent moon and small concave four-pointed star was his thestral cutie mark, but when he was a unicorn, the crescent moon changed into a larger version of the star, which didn’t change. And that was something else that Princess Twilight Sparkle wanted to study, she said that Starjumper was the first pony she’d ever seen who had his cutie mark change between two distinct and separate cutie marks with regularity.

The answer was very simple, which was why he thought her desire to study him was a bit silly and pointless. As a unicorn, Starjumper’s special talent was based on his unicorn magic. When he changed into a thestral, he couldn’t do unicorn magic, so his cutie mark changed to reflect his special talent as a thestral. He honestly didn’t know what his thestral cutie mark represented, since his cutie mark first appeared when he was a unicorn and had changed with him that night. He was a great flyer as a thestral, because of his almost abnormally large wings and body that complemented them, so he suspected that his thestral cutie mark had something to do with his flying skills.

But that was just a theory.

He entered the unlocked balcony door of the apartment and stepped into the lower chamber, which was semicircular with the balcony taking up the other half of the “circle.” He noticed that the large chamber was clean and that the furniture was new, indicating that Princess Twilight had prepared the apartment for his residence. He immediately went upstairs to the bedroom, where Princess Twilight said she would leave the key, which was smaller than the room downstairs, but was still rather large and airy and spacious, semicircular as well. It was nearly empty save for a row of bookshelves on the left, a bed sitting between a pair of nightstands on the right, and a writing desk under the windows looking out over the Royal Palace.

The key to the front door was sitting on the writing desk, which was sitting under the large windows that gave the bedroom a commanding view of the Royal Palace. Also sitting on the desk was a note and a little box that looked like a mailbox not mounted on a pole. Starjumper advanced up to the desk and read the note in the faint light of the moon, his thestral eyes easily able to make it out:

Dear Starjumper:

As agreed, here is the key to the apartment. The mailbox sitting on the desk is magical, and will be how we correspond. Put something in the mailbox and raise the flag, and its contents will be magically sent to its sister mailbox here in the palace. When I send you letters, the flag on the mailbox will raise to alert you.

As you requested, I’ve kept who you are and what you are a secret, and my involvement with you will also be a secret. Most of our correspondence will be through letters. Whenever you and I directly interact, it will be in private. To the school and most in Canterlot aware of you, you are a unicorn from Baltimare who has transferred to the school to study advanced magic applications, the kind of education you can’t receive in Baltimare.

I expect a report at least once a week telling me what you’re studying and what progess you’ve made, I want to be sure that you have no problems assimilating yourself into the classes. If you run into any problems, don’t hesitate to write to me. .

Good luck.

Princess Twilight Sparkle

She really was a nice pony, even if she was almost obnoxiously pushy and a little nosy. She’d been raising the sun and ruling Equestria jointly with Princess Starlight Glimmer for about a year now. Princess Celestia and Princess Luna had decided to take a sabbatical after thousands of years of responsibility for the sun and the moon, and Starjumper could understand their decision. Princess Twilight and Princess Starlight were more than capable of looking after things, so the Royal Sisters were taking a well deserved vacation. They still showed up in Canterlot from time to time, he’d read in the newspaper, showing up for ceremonies like the Summer Sun Celebration and whatnot, so it wasn’t like they’d completely vanished off the face of Equestria. Starjumper figured they were just enjoying a couple of years with no responsibilities, worries, or cares, time to rest and pursue hobbies and interests that were hard to do with Royal duties, and after carrying the burden of the sun and the moon so long, they certainly deserved it.

Assured that the key was here, he went back downstairs to look around and unpack. The downstairs was dominated by bookshelves, but it also held the apartment’s kitchen and storage closet. There was a couch and chair down there not far from the balcony door, a large comfy chair in front of a small fireplace, a dining table, and several stands and end tables, and there were also two different study desks on opposite sides of the semicircular room. There were several floor to ceiling windows between the bookshelves along the curved wall to provide light for the room during the daytime, and just like upstairs, there were panoramic, huge windows that looked out over the Royal Palace.

It was spartan, but it was spacious. And it would do just fine.

He unpacked what few possessions he brought with him, loaded into the two saddlebags buckled in front of his wings, then put the saddlebags on a peg by the front door. He’d only brought a few necessities with him, in addition to every single bit he owned, which he’d converted to gems and put in a small pouch. The school would give him a free lunch in the cafeteria on school days, but he had to buy the rest of his food and his own study supplies, and that irked him more than a little bit. They were making him come to the school, yet they were also making him pay his own bits to do so. There was barely enough gems and bits in the bag to support him for three months if he did virtually anything outside of school, but he already had a plan for dealing with that. He had a list of spells he intended to study on his own time in the school’s library, where he would get access to them for free, and one of them was a spell that located gems. He would learn that spell on his own, and then use it to supplement his income…which was zero.

Despite his displeasure with coming here, it did present to him a unique opportunity, and he was going to take advantage of it. Everything he would do from now until he left Canterlot was all about learning the magic he needed to know to be able to live by himself in relative comfort and security without a permanent home in any city or town, because he doubted he’d be able to settle in one place, or at the very least, settle in a town or city. Ponies would find out about his condition, the rumors would fly, they would get more and more scared of him as the rumors inflated and escalated, and eventually he’d be forced to leave. As far as the thestrals were concerned, showing up at the borders of their kingdom, the Nightlands, would be a death sentence, so part of his overall plan included making sure they couldn't easily find him. So, he was making plans that took into account the fact that he’d never have a permanent home in any pony town, close to shops or an easy means of restocking his food stores. He did have plans to settle in a home, but it would be someplace isolated, remote, and hidden. He’d find a cave high on a lonely cliff and settle there, turn it into a proper home using unicorn magic…which was why he was going to study magic that changed the shape of rock and stone, which would allow him to sculpt the cave into something nice.

He had a plan.

He got everything organized and managed to pen about half of a letter to his family back in Baltimare that he arrived before the sun rose. He was at the upstairs writing desk when Princess Twilight raised the sun, and when its light swept over the city of Canterlot and touched the tower in which he resided, he felt it deep in his bones. He quickly stepped back from the writing table, as the light of the sun almost seemed to surge into him and through him, burning, burning, burning away the night and the magic of the thestrals within him and replacing it with the light of the sun and the magic of the unicorns. He felt the horn quickly erupt from the flesh over and between his eyes and grow with magical speed from his forehead, sending a line of blood down his muzzle before the flesh closed around the fully grown horn and sealed itself. He felt the tufts on his ears singe away, was blinded by the sunlight for a brief second as his eyes retracted to vertical slits, and then there was the wings. His wings stopped moving, shuddered, and then seemed to burn in the light of the sun. He gritted his teeth and gave a dull hiss of pain as smoke wafted from the leathery membranes and spines as they blackened, charred, and then they turned to ash and fell to the floor to each side of him. The charred wounds on his shoulders oozed with dark blood for a moment, then healed over with magical speed.

And on his flank, the crescent moon of his cutie mark became fluid and shifted, changed, and when it stopped moving, it had changed from the crescent moon to a larger four-pointed star, identical in shape to the star by his tail but much larger.

Despite the melodrama of it, the transformation didn’t really hurt as much as it looked. Yes, it hurt, yes, there was some blood involved, but he’d endured that pain for his entire life, and he was…used to it now. The worst of it was when his wings burned away in the light of the sun, but he didn’t really feel any pain when his horn turned to dust when the moon was raised. The horn hurt far more growing out of his skull than it did burning away. But he did feel his wings grow out when the moonlight touched him, and that was a bit unpleasant. It was painful, but compared to them burning away, them growing in was by comparison merely not very pleasant sensation.

But it did look a tad gruesome.

He stood there a moment and collected himself, felt the last of the pain ebb away, then raised his head with a calm, almost indifferent expression. Without so much as a glance down, his horn flared with golden energy as he channeled magic from within, magic brought to him by the rising of the sun, collected up the ash on the floor around him. He gathered it into a ball contained in his levitating magic, then he walked it downstairs and to his backpack. He opened it and dropped the ash in, reminding himself that the first thing he needed to buy was a brass ash bin, then used a cloth from his bag to clean off his forehead and sides. He’d find a suitable place to dispose of the ash when he went out to get what he needed for his stay here.

Instead of walking back up to the writing desk, Starjumper instead opted to do it the other way…the reason why he was being forced to attend this school. In a circular burst of golden magic, Starjumper disappeared from the room downstairs and reappeared sitting in front of the writing desk, teleporting back. Teleportation was his special talent, and not to brag or anything, but he was good at it. He’d earned his cutie mark the very first time he’d teleported, and he reasoned that the two stars represented him teleporting from one place to another. He’d been able to teleport since he was a foal, so he had lots of practice with the magic. But, his ability to teleport didn’t mark him as some powerful pony wizard like one of the Princesses. It was his special talent, so it was much easier for him to do than it was for most other ponies. His father and sister were more powerful in magic than he was, but he could also admit that he was considerably stronger in magic than the average unicorn. Unlike many unicorns, he was capable of learning magic outside of basic spells and his special talent—probably because his special talent did require significant magical power to use, even for him—with enough potential to use most any of the intermediate magical spells, but not the most advanced. But, where he was different from his father and sister was that he learned magic much faster than they did. They had more raw strength than he did, but he learned magic faster than them. He was smart enough to learn most any spell, but he knew that he may not have the magical strength to cast the spells he learned.

But, he was confident that he had the magical strength to learn the spells on his list, because of the spells he’d already learned. His father had managed to get his hooves on two very important spells two years ago and had taught them to Starjumper, a spell that created a magical force field and a spell that attacked a target with a blast of pure magical power. A spell of defense and a spell of attack, to protect himself if he were ever attacked...and for a pony like him, that was a distinct possibility. It had taken him eight moons to learn those two spells, two very advanced spells, and it was those spells that opened his eyes, had showed him that he’d need to know more magic than that to make it by himself in a world that may not accept him for what he was. It showed him that he had the capability to learn and use high order magic. He figured that if he could cast those spells, he could cast any spell he needed to know once he was out on his own.

And then Princess Twilight shows up in Baltimare and commands him to attend school in Canterlot, which both upset and also represented an opportunity to further his own plans.

Spells were very, very expensive when one bought copies of them, so getting access to study spells for free out of the school library was a critical part of his plan. He would endure going back to school after having already graduated for access to the school’s library and the spells it contained.

He always thought it was a bit strange, maybe even a bit ironic, that a unicorn that was only a unicorn during the light of day would be able to use a magic spell that most unicorns dreamed of being able to cast. Teleportation was widely regarded as a spell that only the most learned and most powerful unicorns could use, and the kicker was, Starjumper had never learned it from a book. He had spent years learning how to use it, learning its limitations and its potential, but he’d never formally sat down and studied the spell. For him, it was very nearly a natural ability, because it was his special talent. To him, it wasn't all that special or amazing. It was just...just a part of who and what he was. He could teleport as easily as other unicorns could levitate a teacup.

Despite how natural it was for him, though, it was also one of his most closely guarded secrets. The only ponies that knew he could teleport were his family and Princess Twilight Sparkle…and how she found out was still a mystery to him. It was this ability, teleportation, that had caused her to demand that he attend school in Canterlot, to see if he could develop what she saw as significant magical potential. After all, if he could teleport, then he clearly was capable of other higher applications of magic.

The reason he kept it a secret was very simple. When a pony like him had a secret as big as his condition, that pony did nothing that drew any additional attention to himself. If other ponies knew he could teleport, it would make them notice him, make them pay attention to him, and that would make it difficult to separate himself when sunset neared and he had to retreat back home so he could change in private. Starjumper never brought attention to himself in any way because of his secret, had never really made friends because of the risk that they might find out about his condition, and that was the way it was going to stay.

Besides, when a pony had enemies like the thestrals, that pony didn't reveal his biggest trump card if they ever attacked him. If they knew what he could do, they'd have a plan to counter it.

Now able to use his unicorn magic, he finished the letter by writing holding the quill using his magic rather than between his teeth, then put it in an envelope and addressed it. He wrote another quick note to the Princess informing her he had arrived and taken up residence in the apartment and would be present for the first day of school, then put it in the mailbox device and raised the flag. It flared with magical light, and when he opened the door of the device, he saw that his note was indeed gone.

Quite a clever little device.

The flag raised as he packed his writing supplies for his first day of school—again—and he removed a note that was inside. It was from the Princess, telling him that she received his note, reminding him that he had access to the school library when not in class…and including a suggested reading list of books that might help him get up to speed with the rest of the class. Seriously, how did she write the names of so many books in just a few minutes?

Well, she was a Princess. Maybe one of her Royal skills was being a very, very fast writer.

He put on his saddlebags, made sure he had his key and bit purse inside it, then headed out. There were a few things he needed to do before he reported to school in two hours. He first explored the campus of Princess Celestia’s School for Unicorns, the most prestigious magical school in Equestria, which was nearly deserted, with just a few unicorns moving about the campus. School didn’t start until nine o’clock today, but it would start at seven o’clock the rest of the time. The late starting time on the first day of school was something of a school tradition, he’d come to learn. He found the library where he’d be studying when not in class, right where the directions said it would be, but he kept walking past it and headed out into the city of Canterlot. He explored the streets around the school and Royal Palace as quickly as he could in the time he had, marking the locations of the shops he’d be patronizing, but also locating isolated little spots to which he could teleport without being seen. It was an old habit of his, finding little nooks and crannies that were ideal landing spots close to the places he wanted to visit. He knew every back alley and hidden nook in Baltimare because of that practice, knew the city better than some of the old stallions and mares that had lived there their whole lives. Since he’d be in Canterlot for a year, he explored every street, every alley, every isolated spot and remote garden open to public traffic, and found quite a few landing spots that would let him teleport to most any part of town without being seen doing it.

Teleportation was both very simple and very complex at the same time, but no matter how it was used, it required that the user be fully aware of his or her surroundings. Him learning the limits of his special talent had ingrained into him habits few other ponies possessed, the main one being that Starjumper noticed everything around him. Most ponies that trotted by the sidewalk café he’d just passed would see the tables, maybe notice how many ponies were sitting at them. They wouldn’t remember the color of the umbrellas, the number of glasses on the tables, the color of the hat that the mare sitting at the second table on the left was wearing. Teleportation requited an intimate knowledge of an area to reduce the amount of power it took to use it, so Starjumper had trained himself to observe everything around him at all times, to absorb all the little details that most other ponies missed or dismissed, which would give him enough of a familiarity with a place to teleport back to it with minimal effort.

There were three rules when it came to teleportation: location, position, and motion. Starjumper could control all three of those elements of a teleport, changing his location, changing his position, and to a very small degree, change his motion…unless he exploited some of the more obscure rules of teleportation. He could disappear from the street while trotting and reappear in his apartment sitting down and not moving, changing all three elements he could control. Changing any element caused the spell to require more energy to use, and the bigger the change, the more energy it took to make it happen. Starjumper had already worked out his maximum range while teleporting…and it would surprise quite a few ponies to know that he had the capability to teleport to both Ponyville and Cloudsdale from Canterlot. He could teleport halfway back to Baltimare from Canterlot, for that matter, but that would make him all but pass out when he reappeared. He had a range of exactly 43 miles, 1,204 feet, 4 inches. Given that Ponyville was 31 miles away, it was within his range. It would exhaust him to teleport there in one jump, but he could do it if necessary. He had learned over the years that teleportation had quite a few little quirks and tricks, such as he had to teleport a certain way in order to teleport from a stopped position into a moving train without hurting himself, for example. There was a trick he called anchoring that allowed him to inherit the motion of his landing point so long as he anchored himself to it as he teleported, which would allow him to teleport from one place to another and change his motion and momentum. But if he messed it up, then he’d have the same momentum he had when he disappeared, and that could be potentially fatal if, say, he tried to teleport into the passenger car of a moving train. He’d be stationary and the train would be in motion, so he’d slam into the inside wall of the car with the same force as if he’d walked in front of the train and got hit by the engine.

That was what made teleportation potentially dangerous, and he’d learned all those rules without any help. He’d worked them all out on his own, without any books or tutors, and he often paid for those lessons in singed-off manes, bloody noses, and even serious burns and broken bones.

But he’d managed to survive the learning process, and now he knew everything there was to know about teleportation. After all, it was his special talent, the very reason he had his cutie mark.

When the alarm bell for his small magical clock in his pack went off, Starjumper turned back for the school. He didn’t want to be late on his first day…not because he cared about the classes, but because he cared about getting and keeping his access to the school’s library.

It was the first day of the last year of school…and all she had to do was make it to the end.

Without too much enthusiasm, Summer Dawn walked slowly down the main street of Canterlot, almost reluctant to travel down the long avenue that connected her house to Princess Celestia’s School for Unicorns, the most prestigious magic school in all of Equestria. School…well, school was certainly something she was greatly looking forward to not having to do anymore. She’d done worse and worse over the last few years, to the point where she barely passed last year. And now she just had to scrape through one more year, somehow manage to eke out one more year’s worth of barely passing grades while enduring the disappointed and annoyed stares of her teachers and the pitying yet slightly maliciously satisfied looks from the other unicorns in her class.

They would never admit to her face, but they secretly enjoyed the fact that Summer Dawn was the weak link in the chain. The mare from the richest family in Canterlot that had everything money could buy couldn’t buy herself a passing grade, couldn’t get her important father Fancy Pants or her famous mother Fleur de Lis to talk the headmistress into raising her grades. Summer Dawn struggled mightily in school, and many of the unicorns in school saw it as some kind of strange karmic justice that Little Miss Has Everything Given To Her couldn’t earn something for herself.

That stung. That stung a lot. Summer Dawn didn’t expect to be given everything. She loved magic and she worked hard, she just…she just didn’t understand. The books, they were like gibberish to her. She didn’t understand anything in them, and then, when she tried to get her instructors to explain the material, they just quoted from the books that she didn’t understand, or accused her of not reading the material and getting them to do her work for her. She had done very well when she was younger, when the lessons were more about doing than reading, but as the years went by and the schoolwork was more and more centered in the books she couldn’t understand, her grades got worse and worse and worse.

So, the last couple of years in school had been anything but fun. But, at least her best friend was in her class, Crystal Bell, so that made things a little bit easier. Crystal Bell was like her, the daughter of society ponies, and they’d been best friends since they were little fillies. They attended all the society events together. She trotted up beside her as she walked down the main avenue, a grand street known as the Promenade, which ran straight through Canterlot from one end to the other. Summer Dawn’s house was near the south end of the Promenade, Crystal Bell’s house was just two blocks away on the Promenade, and the Royal Palace was on the Promenade nearly in the exact center of town. It also ran right by the school, which was right beside the Royal grounds, so getting to school for Summer Dawn and Crystal Bell was as easy as coming out of the gates of their manors, turning right, and walking in a straight line until they arrived.

“Hey Summer,” Crystal Bell called. Crystal Bell was a petite young mare with a soft beige coat and a mane of golden brown cut in a short pixie style, a mane that had a very thick streak of white through the right side of it. She had a similar white stripe in her tail. She was carrying her school saddlebags, which nearly hid the two small bells that were her cutie mark. She was a marked contrast to Summer Dawn, who had inherited the white coat and pink mane of her mother, Fleur de Lis, and also inherited her mother’s model-like long, slender body, narrow, fox-like muzzle, and gracefully long legs. The cutie mark on her flank was a yellow semicircle with pink rays extending from it, the depiction of a sunrise, a sunrise for which Summer Dawn was named. She had been born on the morning of the Summer Sun Celebration, at the very moment that Princess Celestia had raised the sun, so her parents had named her Summer Dawn to commemorate that coincidence.

“Morning, Crystal,” she replied. “You ready for our last year?”

“I’m ready to get it overwith,” she laughed in reply. “Are you going to the party tonight?”

“I’m not sure yet,” she said, referring to a traditional party that took place in school after classes on the first day, to “celebrate” the beginning of the school year and catch up with the ponies that didn’t live in Canterlot and had returned for the new school year. Those ponies lived in the dorms on campus. “It’s going to depend on how depressed I am by the time school’s over.”

“It’s not going to be as bad as last year,” she said supportively, patting her on the shoulder with a hoof. “Our finals are half written, half practical, and you always do well on the practical exams. You just need to pull enough grade on your writtens to let your practicals carry you.”

“I hope so,” she sighed. “But I didn’t do too well on my practicals last year.”

“That’s because Professor Starshine had it out for you,” Crystal Bell declared. “Everypony in class saw how mean she was to you, like all the time.”

“I’m totally glad we don’t have her this year,” Summer Dawn sighed in relief.

“Did you hear? We’re getting a new student in class! Some transfer student from Baltimare!” she said eagerly.

“I’ve never heard of a student transfering in for their senior year,” Summer Dawn mused. “I didn’t even know there was a magic school there. I thought Baltimare was an earth pony town.”

“I guess there has to be if he’s transferring,” Crystal Bell shrugged as they walked. “I hope he’s cute.”

“You are so hopeless,” Summer Dawn accused, which made her laugh.

They arrived on campus just moments before the starting bell, but since they’d been going to the school since they were little fillies, they knew exactly where they were going and exactly how long it would take them to get there. Because of that, they reached their classroom and got inside just seconds before the second bell, where all the ponies in her class were already sitting with their quills and notebooks out and ready.

And there was the new pony. He was sitting in the very back of the class, in the corner by the window, and he looked…irritated. He was much bigger than Summer Dawn would have expected, obvious even with him sitting at the desk.

“So nice of you to join us, you two,” Professor Frostmane said curtly as they hurried towards the back of the class, where the only empty desks were left, and took seats in the back row but on the other side from the new pony. He looked…like he didn’t want anypony sitting beside him. Frostmane looked the same as she did last year, a tall, almost skinny pony with long legs and a handsome yet severe face. Her namesake, her thick, long mane of frosty white hair, was brushed back away from her eyes and ears, the end of it nearly dragging the ground. It complemented her ice blue coat very well, and her pale blue coat made her cutie mark, a single shimmering white hexagonal snowflake, stand out.

“Nine o’clock means nine o’clock, ma’am,” Summer Dawn dared to inject, which caused a few muffled giggles in the front of the class.

Frostmane sent a chilly look towards the back of the classroom. “Well then, welcome to the senior year, mares and gentlecolts,” she said, turning and using her magic to pick up a piece of chalk. She wrote her name on the blackboard in flourishing, handsome loops. “I am Professor Frostmane, your advanced magical applications instructor. Our objective in this final year of your education is to learn the most advanced spellcasting techniques you will apply to intermediate and advanced magical spells, learn six spells that will apply those lessons, and also to prepare you for your final exams. Those exams come in two parts, a written test that will challenge everything you have learned in this school from your first year, and a practical spellcasting exam where you demonstrate the magical skills you have learned.

“The reading list for this year consists of fifteen different books,” she continued, which caused a few groans of protest, and made Summer Dawn nearly pale. Fifteen books? That was too many, she’d never finish it with how slowly she read! “Which will form the foundation of the techniques you will learn to apply to more advanced magic. To give you time to work through your reading list, your senior year will be divided between classroom lecture, magic lab, and independent study time in the library. We’ll be in the classroom in the mornings for lecture and magic lab, and after lunch, you will go to the library to study the reference material. I’ll be available in my office after library period for any questions you mght have. Fridays, however, will be a full day in the classroom for lecture, lab, and end of week quizzes and tests. Since you know when you will be taking your quizzes and tests, I expect you to be prepared for them,” she declared firmly.

Her horn limning over in a silvery nimbus, the color of her magic, she distributed pieces of parchment to each student, no doubt the reading list. But it was a lot of writing for it to just be a list of books. She struggled to read the first paragraph, to the point where she zoned out a little bit, trying to make out the words on the parchment, until a loud noise nearly startled her out of her desk. “Miss Summer Dawn, pay attention!” Frostmane barked, which caused some faint snickering. She abandoned trying to read it after that, listening as Frostmane went over a more detailed schedule for that next few months, what they would be studying and the spell they’d be learning in the first part of the year…a rather advanced spell that froze water. It was much more advanced because a spell like that interacted with physics, and also because it was a spell that would take away instead of give. The magic would drain the heat out of the water and make it freeze, where most magic spells invested magical energy into an object to enact a magical change or effect. Part of what they would learn in advanced spellcasting techniques was how to work around physical laws using magic, to learn how to take away the heat from the water and make it freeze, and what to do with that heat once they drained it out of the water.

“Professor,” the new stallion called, his voice deep and rich.

“Yes, Mister Starjumper?”

“I already know that spell,” he answered evenly. “Can I work on another one instead?”

“You already know how to freeze water?” she asked.

He nodded. “Yes ma’am. It’s a spell my father taught me, we use it in our shop to make ice to sell in the summer,” he answered.

“I’m afraid I can’t do that, Mister Starjumper, it would detract from the work of the rest of the class. Once you demonstrate sufficient mastery in the spell, I’ll permit you to self-study in the classroom while we’re working on the spell. You will, however, still be required to take the written quizzes and exams dealing with that spell, so I suggest you do study the bookwork. I rather doubt how you learned the spell is exactly the same as we teach it.”

“Alright, ma’am,” he answered.

“Report to my office after you eat lunch so you can demonstrate your knowledge of the spell.”

“Yes ma’am.”

Frostmane returned to discussing their schedule for the year, but Summer Dawn was distracted by a small note that Crystal Bell set on her desk with magic, taking advantage of Frostmane turning to write on the board. It took Summer Dawn a few minutes to decipher the note, and nearly giggled. New stallion is already getting under Nova’s skin, it read. Nova was the class prodigy, the pony with the highest grades and the most talent in magic, and he made sure everypony else in class knew just how smart and talented he was at any available opportunity. Crystal Bell was right that the new stallion’s casual declaration that he already knew a spell that Nova didn’t know would eat at his hooves a little bit, and that would surely bring Nova’s snide, derisive attention down on the new pony.

After a couple of hours of going over their plans for the year, Frostmane dismissed class at the lunch bell. “No afternoon period today, you’re free to go,” she called as they all started gathering their writing supplies. “Mister Starjumper, come to my office after you eat lunch so I can assess your mastery of the spell.”

“Yes ma’am,” he answered. He gathered up his quill, ink, and book and put them in his saddlebags, and when he stood up and started towards her, she stopped dead and stared at him. His eyes…they weren’t normal! His pupils were vertical slits, like a cat’s! she gawked as he passed by, him not even sparing her a glance. Summer Dawn and Crystal Bell followed him out, and they walked down the hall with several other classes, all heading for the exit. The cafeteria was in another building, and those like Summer Dawn who lived in Canterlot year round didn’t get to eat in the cafeteria for free, and if she was going to pay for food, it was darn well going to be better food than that. So most Canterlot residents went to one of the many diners and restaurants that were near the school, that catered to the students.

Once outside and a good distance away from the new stallion, the gossipping almost immediately began. “Did you see his eyes?” Golden Heart breathed as she came up with them. Golden Heart, along with Berry Cream, were the core group of her friends in her class and in school. They were the fillies of society ponies, just like Summer Dawn. “I’ve never seen anything like that before!”

“He must have had some sort of awful magical accident, and they sent him here before he turned himself into a radish,” Berry Cream speculated.

“He’s half bat pony,” sober, serious Strider said from behind them.

“Whoa, seriously?” Crystal Bell gasped.

“I heard the professors talking this morning,” the short, slender young stallion said. “One of them said he’s half bat pony.”

“Wow. I’ve never really seen a bat pony, at least close up. I mean, I’ve seen them pull Princess Luna’s carriage, but that’s from far away,” Crystal Bell said. “I wonder why I’ve never seen them in Canterlot, you know, just shopping in a store or having dinner in a restaurant. Don’t they get time off?”

“Maybe they can’t come out in the daylight,” Berry Cream said.

“Those are old mare’s tales, Berry,” Strider snorted.

“Alright then, Mister I Know Everything, why don’t they ever seem to come out of the palace?” Berry Cream retorted.

“No idea, but it’s not because they’ll burst into flame if they get out in the sun. That’s just an old myth,” he said, a bit scathingly.

“Or hey, maybe it’s something really silly and outrageous like they’re out in the city shopping or having lunch in a diner right now, and we never see them because we’re in school,” Summer Dawn said lightly. “And when we get out, they’re already back in the palace sleeping so they can stay up all night to do their duty.”

“Well, that does make sense,” Berry Cream admitted.

They went to one of the several diners on Book Street, which bordered the school, to have lunch, and then Summer Dawn walked home with Crystal Bell. They discussed the upcoming year and Frostmane’s description of what they’d be doing, which gave Summer Dawn a little hope. All she had to do was outperform in the practical magic labs and the practical spellcasting section of her final exam, and maybe, maybe, that would be enough to allow her to just barely squeak by with a passing grade.

But she still wasn’t too enthusiastic. That fifteen book reading list was going to haunt her dreams tonight.

It took him longer than he expected to find Professor Frostmane’s office.

The campus of the school had six buildings, and all the staff offices and administrative offices were in the largest building, a large circular multistory building with a dome in the front and a tower rising from the back half of it, where the youngest unicorns had their classes. The building was the oldest on the campus as well, a near warren maze of twisting, curling passages and stairways. Frostmane looked a trifle piqued when Starjumper entered after knocking. “You’re late, Mister Starjumper,” she admonished.

“The building is more confusing than I expected,” he replied in defense as he closed the door behind him with his magic.

“I’ll give you that much,” she agreed, then she set down the scroll she was reading, the silvery nimbus of magic around it fading and then flaring back to life around a pitcher of water. “Very well then, Mister Starjumper. Let’s see your skill with the freezing spell.”

Starjumper’s horn flared with a nimbus of golden energy, the color of his magic, and the entire pitcher of water froze solid almost instantly. He had even taken care to make sure the freezing water didn’t expand and shatter the glass pitcher by freezing it from the outside in and from the bottom to the top, allowing the expanding ice to push the remaining water upwards as it froze, which created a slight dome of ice on top of the surface..

Frostmane raised a brow. “Well done, Mister Starjumper,” she said. “That was quite efficient.”

“With all due respect, ma’am, I’ve been using that spell since I was a foal,” he told her mildly. “Like I said, my father taught it to me so I could help make ice during the summer, for our shop.”

“How much water can you freeze in a single casting?”

“An area of about six feet square to a depth of two feet,” he answered. “We have a tank we use to make the ice, and that’s its dimensions. We’d freeze the water, then cut the ice into blocks and sell them. I don’t know if I could freeze more than that in a single casting, I’ve never tried. Once I got good enough to freeze the whole tank, I stopped practicing the spell. That was all I needed to do with it.”

“That’s a very large area,” she said speculatively. “That suggests you have some potential, Mister Starjumper.”

“My father and sister are way stronger in magic than me,” he shrugged modestly.

“Alright, let’s discuss the mechanics of the spell, Mister Starjumper. I’m curious to see how you were taught.”

They ended up spending nearly two hours talking about the freezing spell, and magic in general. Frostmane was honestly surprised by his description of how he learned the spell, how it was much different from the approach the school used, and spent the rest of the two hours discussing the differences in the two techniques. Frostmane couldn’t deny that how Starjumper learned the spell was effective given the volume of water he could freeze at once, and she was honestly curious about what else he’d learned about magic from his father. “I’m quite surprised that a self-taught unicorn would have such a strong grip on the mechanics of magic,” she complemented as they finished up. “He taught you very well, Mister Starjumper. I think I would like to speak to your father about magic. I very well may be going to visit Baltimare on our first break.”

“Just write first and arrange things, ma’am, don’t just go,” Starjumper warned. “Father doesn’t like unannounced visitors, because he’s very busy. As long as you arrange it with him first, he’d most likely be happy to tell you anything you want to know about what he knows about magic.”

“Easily done,” she assured him. “Thank you, Mister Starjumper. Remember, classes start at seven o’clock tomorrow morning.”

“I’ll be there,” he nodded.

That bit of business tended, Starjumper dropped his saddlebags off at the apartment, and then continued his exploration of Canterlot. He took his time now, taking in every street, everything on the streets, the buildings, everything, categorizing everything he saw with a practiced eye, a skill he learned after mastering teleportation. He didn’t just explore every main street, he explored everywhere, going anywhere there wasn’t a wall, fence, or gate, going down every alleyway, prowling around every shop, walking the length and breadth of every one of the many parks and squares in the city, and always he was observing, observing, observing. Every small detail of the buildings and streets were committed to memory as he slowly made his way through the city, as were many of the ponies he passed in the streets…many of which gave him startled looks when they saw his eyes. But he was used to that. He even saw a pony he knew from pictures, the famous retired model Fleur de Lis—

After seeing her, he realized that one of the mares in his class had to be related to her. They looked too similar for it to be a coincidence…maybe a daughter? A niece?

Anyway, he’d seen her picture in the shop enough times before she retired from modeling not to recognize her. And since he was a pony that was intensely jealous of his own privacy, he wasn’t about to go over there and bother her as she had tea with a pink-coated unicorn mare with a styled red mane and wearing a large white hat with a pink silk band and opal brooch, with a large gray feather fastened to the hat by the brooch at a sidewalk café.

His exploration of the city took nearly six hours, and it had been productive. He had located twenty different places where he could land where he’d be out of sight that would let him teleport almost anywhere in the city, from isolated alleyways to a large nook behind one of the waterfalls that cascaded down the mountain, this one falling into one of the many public parks in the city. His exploration ended at the overlook park, a park built along the lip of the stone ledge that had been built out away from the mountainside that supported the southwest side of Canterlot. A good four blocks of the city was built on that bowl-shaped protrusion off the mountainside, which had been built and shaped by magic, and from the overlook park that meant that there was nothing under the ground and stone under his hooves but thousands of feet of empty air. A low wall was built around the very edge, and he elicited quite a few gasps from other ponies at the park when he fearlessly hopped up onto the edge of the wall so he could lean out and try to look underneath the lip of the wall, see if the stone under the park sloped towards the mountain at an angle or if it was flat underneath.

He got back down off the wall and watched the other ponies in the park, and when he was certain none of them were looking in his direction, he jumped up and over the wall and quickly vanished down into the void. But if they’d been able to see below the wall, they would have seen Starjumper’s horn flare with golden magic, and that nimbus quickly surrounded his entire body as he enacted a trick his father taught him, self-levitation. He drifted up under the overhang, studying the stone over his head and further towards the mountainside. He saw that the stone under was almost flat near the edge, no doubt magically strengthened when it was made, then sloped more and more downwards as it neared the mountain, forming a parabolic curve. He turned over and put his hooves on the stone, and then the magical aura around him wavered and vanished, yet he didn’t fall. He was clinging to the stone above him like an insect.

This was not unicorn magic. This was thestral magic, the only thestral magic he could use as a unicorn. All thestrals had the ability to cling to surfaces, or “cling” to small items that they touched, which they could then pick up and move if they were small and light enough. The power applied to every part of him, inluding the hair in his tail...and that was why all thestrals kept their tails very long, so they could literally hang by their tails from a solid surface. It was a vital ability in the caves from which the thestrals originated and was also their preferred way of sleeping, hanging upside down off the ceiling. It was a very subtle magic, but it was deceptively powerful and extremely useful. It was also the only unusual aspect of himself in his unicorn form that he didn’t hide from other ponies. The thestral ability to cling to things was well known, it was there for anypony who cared to pick up a book about thestrals and read it, so he didn’t hide the fact that he inherited that bit of thestral magic from his mother. He had also inherited his mother’s ability to stay upside down as long as he wanted without the blood rushing to his head and making him pass out, but Starjumper suspected that that wasn’t magic. That had to be biology. Thestral bodies were built to be upside down for extended periods of time, and he was more thestral than unicorn, had aspects of his thestral heritage even when he was a unicorn.

Since he was completely hidden from just about everypony, he decided to get back to the apartment the short way. His horn flared with a bright surge of golden magic, and he vanished from under the park in a circular burst of magical energy. He reappeared inside the apartment in a similar burst, appearing sitting in front of the writing table in the bedroom, where he had set his writing materials. As he took off his saddlebags, the small clock inside rang, warning him that sunset was half an hour away. It was the only enchanted object he owned, a magical clock that rang an alarm three times, at half an hour before sunset or sunrise, fifteen minutes before sunset or sunrise, and five minutes before sunset or sunrise. He could also set a manual alarm for a specific time, a very useful feature for a pony that often lost track of time with his nose in a book. It was a device his father had made for him when he was a foal, and he had carried it for most of his life. That clock ruled him, because it told him when it was time to return home so he could be out of the public eye when he changed. It was a conditioned reflex by now that when he heard that tinny bell, he immediately stopped what he was doing and returned home.

Half an hour until sunset, plenty of time to get some things done outside, but Starjumper wouldn’t leave the apartment now that he was back. And he had many wistful memories of sitting in his room back in Baltimare, looking out the windows as the foals in the neighborhood played in the open lot beside the shop, wishing he could be out there with them. But over time, that wish faded, as did his desire to be around other ponies. Most of them wouldn’t understand who and what he was, and it would just cause him more problems than it was worth.

His parents had hidden the truth of him his entire life, and he did not blame them one bit for it. As far as he was concerned, they’d made the right decision. He didn’t have that opinion when he was a little foal, too young to understand how his condition would complicate both his life and the lives of his family if it became common knowledge. Some ponies would believe in the old stories about were-ponies and think he turned into some savage monster at night whose bite could turn other ponies into were-ponies. Some would fear him because of his condition the way the thestrals did and reject him, maybe try to force him out of town, maybe even try to do him harm…and when he was a foal, that would also mean that his family would be forced out of the shop they’d run for five generations in the river district of Baltimare, Saddler’s Supplies. Some wouldn’t care about it, and some would drive him absolutely crazy with questions…kind of like Princess Twilight. That meant that most ponies would be a threat to his life or home, because of fear or ignorance, and most of the ponies left would aggravate the hay out of him.

He was alone, he would always be alone, and he was fine with it. He had his family if he needed companionship or friends, and while he didn’t plan on going back home, they were never more than a few hours of flying away if he needed somepony to talk to.

He spent the time up until sunset writing letters to his parents and siblings, and once Princess Starlight raised the moon and he changed, he finished up as he waited for it to get dark. Once it was dark enough outside, he stepped out onto the balcony, spread his large leathery wings, and vaulted up into the night, his dark coat quickly blurring in with the shadows of the night until he vanished from view.

Who needed friends when he had the entire night sky and the song of the night whispering to him?

This was why, if he had to choose between being a unicorn and a thestral, he’d choose being a thestral. To feel the air under his wings, the wind in his face, to dance with the wind under a canopy of shimmering starlight…magic could not in any way compare to this. This was freedom, pure freedom, the freedom to go wherever he wanted, freedom from the worries and cares of those stuck on the ground, the freedom to be who he truly was with no worries over how other ponies may react to it. Down there, he was a prisoner of his secret, forced into silence and isolation else the truth ruin his life. Up here, he could be himself, be everything the ground took away from him. Up here, he could be Starjumper.

A Fable's Truth

This was…strange.

It was almost surreal in that this was everything he never believed would happen if his secret ever got out, and he couldn’t shake the feeling that this was too good to be true. Here he was, Starjumper Astra, a Lykan, walking down the Promenade with friends, and doing it not as a unicorn, but as a thestral. He felt entirely exposed out here, especially since he couldn’t fly, but Summer Dawn was with him, and he knew that she would protect him if things got out of control. And the ponies around him could tell he couldn’t fly because of the splint on his wing, which forced him to keep them open over his back, showing off how big his wings were.

He wasn’t exactly sure how he allowed Summer Dawn to talk him into this. At least as a unicorn, he had his magic and he had options, but to walk the streets with his wings, unable to fly and with only his spider magic as a defense, he felt even more exposed than he did yesterday when he went to school for the first time since his secret was exposed. But he wasn’t alone, and for that matter, he was in the company of some very powerful ponies in Canterlot. Summer Dawn walked beside him, and her friends walked with them, Crystal Bell and Berry Cream on Summer Dawn’s side and Strider walking beside him. The others were wearing coats and scarves against the cold, but Starjumper was not. It was a bit chilly, he could admit, but he was long in the habit of never wearing anything that might interfere with his flying, and coats and other cold weather gear would slow him down in the air. For a pony like him, everything he did was about keeping himself safe, minimizing the chance he may be attacked and having options if that happened. It was a paranoid way to live, but the fact that he was still alive proved that it was working.

And Luna, how the ponies out on this nippy winter night stared at him. He didn’t stand out quite so much as a unicorn, but his wings were as bad as lit up Bridleway signs in that they told everypony exactly who he was, and did so from a distance. The fact that he couldn’t fold them with the splint on made it even worse, since they were hoisted up over his back like sails.

“Calm down, Star,” Summer Dawn told him calmly as they walked.

“Easy for you to say,” he grunted, looking around nervously. “I can’t fly. You have no idea how helpless that makes me feel.”

“Do you want me to put a shield around you?” she asked, looking up at him playfully.

“That’s not much of a joke, Summer,” Strider chided her seriously. “Look at this from his point of view.”

She gave him a long look, then her eyes turned a bit sheepish. “I’m sorry,” she said earnestly.

“It’s nothing,” he said dismissively, staring down two society ponies dressed in finery that were whispering behind their hooves as they passed. “This was a bad idea,” he growled.

“You have to let ponies see you, Star, both ways,” Summer Dawn told him. “Don’t let them think you’re afraid of what you are, that you have to hide away during the night.”

“It’s gonna take some getting used to, seeing you without a horn,” Crystal Bell said. “That’s even more jarring than the wings. Does it ever bother you? I think I’d freak out a little bit if I looked up and didn’t see anything.”

“I’m used to it,” he replied absently, nearly turning to walk sideways as he continued to stare down the two society ponies. He finally looked away from them, and had a shiver go up his back when he felt their stares on him, now where he couldn’t see them.

They turned a corner, and their destination came into view, the Tasty Treat. The old restaurant, situated at the terminus of a dead end street, suddenly had an ominous feel to him as they started towards it, a feeling that he was walking into a trap. The walls along the sides seemed to close in on him as they walked closer and closer to the building, and a trio of ponies entered the street behind him, making him feel like he was cut off. He forced himself to calm down, reminding himself he could just go up the wall if anything happened, and there weren’t many ponies in Canterlot that would be able to follow him.

The excursion got even less appealing when they reached the door. They entered to find the restaurant almost full, which made him feel very nervous, but that wasn’t what turned the night for him. Saffron’s adorable daughter, Curry, gave him a wide-eyed look and took a few quick steps back. The young mare had always been very nice to him, even flirted with him a little bit when he ate there, but now she looked at him with fear. “Hello, Curry,” Summer Dawn said in a warm voice, ignoring her reaction. “Table for five, please.”

“Th-This way,” she stammered, putting on a forced smile as she waved with a hoof, and making sure she stayed well in front of them.

Starjumper gave Summer Dawn a dark look, but she returned it with reassurance and nudged him forward with a hoof.

They were seated in the back of the restaurant, by the kitchen door, and Starjumper tried very hard to ignore the other ponies, who had gone completely silent and all stared in his direction. The silence extended moment after moment, even Summer Dawn and her friends were quiet as they looked around, then two ponies got up from their barely-touched meal and hurried towards the door. Another couple followed them, then a trio, then more, then more. And it made him almost sick to his stomach to see them running away from him like that, even though it was the reaction he had always expected. By the time Curry came out of the kitchen with menus for them, there were only four tables occupied, and one of those tables was in the act of getting up and leaving, their noses in the air. Curry looked around in surprise, then gasped and staggered back when Starjumper aggressively got out of his seat and started towards the door himself.

He could smell her fear.

That hurt worse than the stranger ponies leaving. Curry knew him, and now she was afraid of him, because she knew what he was.

“Star!” Summer Dawn called.

“I told you this was a bad idea!” he growled, marching quickly towards the door.

She rushed after him, chasing him all the way out onto the street, where the ponies that left the restaurant stopped and turned to look when they heard Summer Dawn call his name again. “Star!” she said, rushing up in front of him and stopping, making him stop. “They can’t see there’s nothing to be afraid of if you hide in your apartment!”

“Do you see anypony around?” he retorted hotly. “They ran out of that restaurant like it was on fire! It doesn’t do me much bloody good to be seen out and about in Canterlot if everypony runs away from me!” He gave a hot huff of anger and stepped around her, but saw the ponies standing in the entryway to the street, blocking him in. He turned and stormed over to the wall of the building adjoining the street, then gave a short hop and landed on the side of it with all four hooves. He clung fast to the building face, then started up the wall.

Summer Dawn floated up to get level with him as the others came out of the restaurant. “Just be patient, Star. Give them a chance, I’m sure they’ll come around.”

“Like Curry?” he asked with a pained catch in his voice. “A pony that knows me, acting like I was going to attack her any second? No, I’m done for tonight,” he snapped, reaching the top of the wall and climbing up onto the roof, then turning towards his apartment. He marched across the flat roof, then jumped over to the next one. He stormed across that one, then reached the street, which presented a barrier too wide for him to jump. He didn’t even hesitate, he spread his wings fully and prepared to take off, but he found himself wrapped in Summer Dawn’s magic, stopping him from executing the downstroke that would get him off the ground..

“You’re going to hurt yourself!” she protested. “The doctor said no flying!”

“Either let go of me or take me home,” he declared adamantly. “Because that’s where I’m going. And if I have to break my wing to get there, that’s exactly what I’m going to do,” he threatened.

She gave him a stern, steady look, then sighed and bowed her head a little. He found himself being picked up off the ground by her magic, then she came up beside him and merged the two auras of magic into a single one, making it easier on her to carry them, and started for the apartment. She was silent for the short trip, descending with him and setting them down on the balcony. “Star,” she began, but he cut her off by whirling towards the door.

“Don’t ever ask me to do that again,” he said in a powerful voice.

“Star, you can’t hide—“

Her declaration was met with the slamming of the balcony door when he closed it behind himself.

And that was the beginning of a long, unpleasant night. It had been his worst fears coming to light, and despite knowing it was coming, it didn’t make it hurt any less. The ponies of Canterlot may think that they were cosmopolitan and accepting, until they had to be in the same room with him. That was when their true colors showed and their superstitious fear revealed itself, and it was perfectly demonstrated in Curry. The mare that had known him since he came to Canterlot, was always so nice to him, even flirted with him, she was terrified of him now. He could smell it on her, a dark miasma of both fear and horror that marred her spicy scent and revealed the truth he had never seen beneath her adorable exterior. To have Curry react to him like that, it could have only hurt worse if Summer Dawn recoiled from him when she found out the truth.

He paced in circles around the apartment, vertical ones rather than horizontal ones, trying to calm down, but all it did was let him see the reality of his situation. It said a lot about Summer Dawn’s friends that they would stick with him, but the only reason they did was because of Summer Dawn. She knew him, she vouched for him, and that was enough for them. But it wasn’t enough for the other ponies in Canterlot, not even Princess Twilight’s explanation had been enough. She’d told them that the old stories were just fairy tales and he was no danger, but they were showing that their superstitious fear was stronger than the calm, logical explanation from a pony that they were supposed to trust.

The solution, he hated to admit, was what Summer Dawn had been saying, but the restaurant showed that it wasn’t going to be that easy. He couldn’t show them they were wrong if they wouldn’t give him the chance.

He’d been a fool to think that the acceptance he found with Summer Dawn’s family and her friends would extend to ponies that didn’t know him, that he didn’t know. Now, they didn’t want to know him. The truth of his condition would be like a wall between them, a wall built of fear and suspicion, and he could admit that that wall would be built in both directions. He had lived most of his life in fear of his secret being exposed, and now that it was, that fear had transplanted itself onto the ponies around him. He was just as afraid of them as they were of him, because they represented the darkest of his nightmares, for other ponies to know the truth of him and reject him over that truth.

Summer Dawn had been his most desperate dream coming true. Curry was his worst nightmare come to life.

He slowed to a stop on the ceiling, sat down, and blew out his breath. He couldn’t let his fear get the best of him. He was a thestral, and a thestral didn’t allow himself to be ruled by fear. It was an insult to his heritage and a shame upon his family name. Yes, what happened with Curry hurt. It hurt a lot. But to run away was the coward’s way, and thestrals were not cowards. He had to be strong, he had to show them that they had nothing to fear. And while it was going to all but devastate him over the next couple of weeks, he had to keep trying. To run away would only stoke their fears, make them think that he had something to hide.

But…he would never go back to the Tasty Treat. No matter how brave a face he could put on with other ponies, to have to face Curry again, to see that fear in her eyes, to smell it staining her scent…he couldn’t do that again. He just…he just couldn’t. No matter how brave he wanted to be, he just didn’t have the courage to do that.

Tomorrow, he would go to school. He would eat in the cafeteria like he always did, he wouldn’t allow his secret being discovered change his routine. He would be strong the way Summer Dawn wanted him to be. He would stand strong in the face of ponies that would shy away from him, that would stare at him and whisper behind their hooves. He would not be afraid of them, and he would not allow their fear of him to change who he was.

The fault was in them, not in him. And he couldn’t live his life restricted by their shortcomings.

That was what he had to do. And no matter how much he didn’t want to do it…that was tough. This was real life, not a fairy tale, and in real life ponies had to do things they didn’t want to do.

But…he was too grounded in reality to not plan for eventualities. And the biggest of which was that he needed to move out of the apartment. Too many ponies knew where he lived, and that was just inviting somepony crazy to do something stupid. He would move forward with his hidden cave idea, and move forward with it starting tomorrow. If he found an ideal spot, he could have the first gallery opened in a couple of days, and then he would move into that space. It wouldn’t need to be fancy, he’d just need to make sure it was properly ventilated. He’d continue to host his tutoring sessions in the apartment, if only to hide his new house, but he’d move all of his possessions to the cave and sleep there as soon as he had enough room.

At least there, he’d be safe.

North Star was winning.

He could tell as he walked to school, his bag of donuts and coffee floating along with him, he could see it in the ponies around him, and he saw it in Donut Joe’s diner. The place was nearly empty when he walked in, and while Joe was nice to him, his smile was forced and his eyes were worried. He was losing business because he allowed Starjumper to patronize his diner, just like how Saffron had lost an entire dining room of customers last night when Starjumper entered her restaurant. And while it was the right thing to do to treat him like every other pony, as his father would say, business is business. Starjumper had no doubt that by this time next week, Donut Joe would take him aside when he came in one morning and regretfully tell him that he couldn’t come to the shop anymore, else he’d have to close down.

This was part of North Star’s plan, it had to be. And it seemed that Fancy Pants and Fleur de Lis were losing the rumor war with him.

He wasn’t surprised. North Star had too much ammunition, too much juicy gossip to work with when it came to somepony as potentially scandalous as a Lykan. There was no doubt he was spreading the old stories about Lykans everywhere he could, and he no doubt had ponies helping him, like his son, and maybe even ponies he hired just to spread the rumors. And no matter how much Summer Dawn’s parents told ponies that Starjumper wasn’t that pony, they were up against a tidal wave. Ponies would believe North Star over Fancy Pants because it was more exciting. Telling other ponies that Starjumper was actually a nice pony and the old stories were just that in no way compared to the sheer joy they would get from pulling ponies aside and whispering about how Starjumper drank the blood of foals, and how his bite could turn ponies into were-ponies like him, and how the light of the full moon drove him into a murderous rage that was only satisfied when he killed somepony.

Which would be in three days, which no doubt had the more gullible townsponies very worried.

Rumors had nothing to do with the truth. They had everything to do with titillation, with juicy scandal, with the excitement of spreading them, and a rumor had to be worth spreading to make it enjoyable. And North Star had the upper hoof because of the old mare’s tales about Lykans.

He thought on Monday that things were not going well, and two days later, he was sure of it. In just two days, the stares had become whispers, and now ponies were retreating from him when he appeared. The fear of him was taking hold, and it was starting to spread. And that fear meant that he had to be very careful, else he might end up dead. Some frightened pony would do Moonblade’s work for her, attacking Starjumper out of a misguided belief that he was the monster that Equestrian legend said he was.

As he walked to school with ponies crowding the far side of the Promenade, staring at him with growing unease and even hostility, he knew that his plan to move out of the apartment had to be executed as soon as possible. He might even need to inform Princess Twilight of what was going on, so she might try to put a stop to it once again.

And he knew then, he knew that he would never find a life here. So, the work he did on his cave home didn’t need to be elaborate, just enough to hold him over until he was done with school and could leave Canterlot.

That depressed him. He didn’t want to leave Summer Dawn, he’d grown quite fond of her parents as well, but he didn’t have much of a choice. He had the feeling that if he tried to stay here, he’d be a complete pariah. He’d be living in a town where no merchant would sell him anything, where only a few ponies living here would have anything to do with him, and he would face persecution, and maybe even violence, if he stayed. The first rule of survival for a Lykan was know when to run, and his instincts were telling him that this was that time. And while he couldn’t leave Canterlot unless the Princess permitted it, it meant that he had to take proper precautions so he couldn’t be dragged out of his apartment and beaten to death by a mob of fearful ponies.

Well, at least he could come visit. He needed to visit their house and find a good landing point where he could teleport in, so he could visit with them and spend time with Summer Dawn. Nopony else ever need know. He was not going to abandon his friend because of the ponies of Canterlot, not when he could come see her without them ever knowing. She was too important to him, his life would be too empty without her to never see her again. The Waterfalls was a gigantic manor, nopony would know he was visiting unless somepony in the house talked. And he’d learned that Summer Dawn’s entire family could keep a secret.

Summer Dawn landed beside him, the aura of magic around her fading, and she gave him a slightly worried look. “Are you okay?” she asked in greeting.

“I’m alright,” he replied. “And I have to apologize to you for being rude last night,” he told her. “But something’s going on, Summer,” he said, looking over at her. “Can you feel it?”

“I know what you mean. I talked to Dad last night, and he said that there’s serious talk in the social circles about them demanding that the Princess lock you in the dungeon over the days of the full moon,” she answered. “I don’t understand. We’ve told them that they’re wrong about you, but it’s like the more we talk, the less they listen.”

“You once told me that I didn’t understand the power that a rumor could have,” he grunted as they walked onto the campus. “I think now it’s my turn to say that to you.”

“I…I guess, but this—ponies may gossip, but they don’t do this,” she said.

“What’s the most important thing about a rumor, Summer?”

“How juicy it is,” she said, then she frowned.

“Unless you can make me sounding normal as exciting as what the old stories say about me, you’re going to lose,” he said simply. “They want to believe the lies because they’re much more thrilling to talk about. It’s way more fun to tell their friends how I drink the blood of foals than the fact that I just want to live a nice boring uneventful life.”

“We just have to show them that they’re wrong,” she fretted. “If they knew you the way I do, they’d feel ashamed of themselves for ever thinking that the rumors are true.”

“It’s too late for that, Summer,” he said darkly. “Curry proved that. What I am is all they’re going to see now.”

“No, there has to be a way,” she said as they approached the academic building. “I have to think about this for a while.”

School was no reprieve from the ugly looks and whispers. The other students went deathly quiet when they came into the room, and before they could take their seats, Frostmane stood up. “Mister Starjumper, Miss Summer Dawn,” she called.

They approached her desk, and she sat back down. “Yes, Professor?” Summer Dawn asked.

“Due to your advanced studies outside of class, the Headmistress has decided that it’s more important for you to pursue those studies. Effectively immediately, both of you are on a self-study program,” she announced. “You will report to the classroom every morning to give a brief report of the work you’ve done the day before and the work you intend to do that day, and every Friday, you will submit a report detailing your progress. Every Friday afternoon, you will give a practical demonstration to show me what you’ve learned over the week. Outside of that, the topics you choose to study are your own choice, with the understanding that you will complete your study on teleportation magic and be ready to undergo an extensive practical exam when you are ready. In your final exam, you will demonstrate mastery in at least three magical spells considered advanced magic not taught in class. Given you have already mastered shields and are working on teleportation, you only need to choose one additional advanced spell to study. Which one you pursue in addition to shields and teleportation is up to you. Your practical final will be based on your mastery of those three spells in addition to the spells taught in the curriculum, so be ready.”

Summer Dawn gave her a bright, eager look and nodded emphatically. For her, being freed from the evils of classroom lecture was a dream come true. “Yes, Professor,” she said giddily. “Do you still want us to test out of transfiguration, so you’re certain we’ll be ready for that part of the final?”

“Can you?”

“Yes, we can,” she replied confidently.

“Then see me after you eat lunch and I’ll give you the practical.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Summer Dawn said happily.

“Oh yes. After lunch, the Headmistress and myself would like to see both of you to discuss your work on teleportation magic,” she said. “So we will report to her office after we finish the transfiguration practical.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Summer Dawn nodded.

Starjumper found it oddly convenient that they’d been put on self-study, getting out of being in the same class as Nova, but on the other hoof, he wasn’t going to put his nose up at it. It was definitely a gift to both of them, since they were honestly beyond what they taught in class, and it freed them to pursue their own studies. And he already knew which spell to teach Summer Dawn for her third spell, and that was the mirror spell. It was a very advanced spell, the most advanced spell he knew, and it would easily qualify as a third high order magic spell for the final.

Like Summer Dawn, he certainly couldn’t complain. He hated sitting in class as much as she did.

The look she gave him was positively beatific as they left the classroom and started for the library. “Well, that made this day a whole lot better!” she said excitedly. “What are we going to work on first?”

“You’re going to work on the book reading spell, then I think this afternoon I’ll teach you the spider spell,” he mused. “It’s fairly simple, and you should pick it up in just a couple of hours.”

“Sounds good to me. I can practice teleportation during our session.”

“That’s going to be short today,” he warned her. “As soon as I’m done with your parents, I’m done for today. I have something else to do.”

“Hey now, that’s my time,” she challenged.

“You can work more on blind teleportation at home, you need to master that before we can move on to external teleportation, and I trust you not to do anything stupid,” he told her.

“What are you going to do?”

“Find the ideal location for my new apartment,” he replied.

“You’re moving?”

“Too many ponies know where I live,” he said grimly. “I’m going to move to someplace they can’t reach me. I’m going to hollow out a cave for myself up on the cliffside, someplace most ponies can’t reach, and stay there until I’m done here in Canterlot. Then, I suppose, I’m going to move on,” he sighed. “From what I’ve seen the last couple of days, Summer…this is not my place.”

“I don’t want you to leave!”

“I can teleport, silly mare. I’m never more than a spell away,” he chided her. “It doesn’t matter where I live so long as I’m within range. I can come over to the Waterfalls and memorize a room in your house and use it as a landing spot. Nopony ever need know that I’m visiting you and your parents.”

“Well…that’s not a bad idea, I suppose, but I’d still rather you stay here.”

“That’s not my decision to make,” he said calmly. “And the ponies have Canterlot have already made up their minds.”

“Not yet they haven’t,” she said adamantly. “I’ll make sure they change their minds.”

He looked down at her, a grateful look softening his features a brief second.

The day went fairly well. Summer Dawn made significant progress on the book reading spell, and it only took him about an hour to teach her the spider climbing spell before lunch, since they would most likely spend the entire afternoon in the Headmistress’ office. And that prediction came true, as the two of them sat with Roseglass and Frostmane and talked about the spell. To their credit, they listened more than they talked, letting him explain the spell as he knew it, then they asked a whole lot of very insightful questions about the more exotic mechanics of the spell, things that Summer Dawn hadn’t started to practice yet. They then had Summer Dawn demonstrate what she’d learned so far, and she acquitted herself nicely by not only teleporting across the room, but successfully teleporting to a blind landing point with only a tiny amount of resistance.

After school, Starjumper met his other students in the apartment and got them to work, though they spent more time talking about the sudden turn in the mood of the city, something her parents had definitely noticed. “I know that it’s North Star doing it,” Fancy Pants fretted. “But I don’t understand the reason for this vitriol. I mean, yes, you and Nova had a bit of a confrontation when you first arrived, but that doesn’t explain this.”

“He called me a mongrel, long before he knew I was a Lykan. I think that’s all the explanation needed here,” he answered. “He objects to me based on my thestral blood.”

“I would never believe an educated unicorn like him would fall prey to base…racism,” Fancy Pants snorted.

“We all have darkness in us, Fancy Pants,” Starjumper said.

The tutoring session with them went well, with Fancy Pants starting to show real progress in unlearning what he’d been taught and relearning the right way, and Fleur de Lis made significant progress in her work on shields. After they were done, Summer Dawn decided to go with him as he stepped out onto the balcony, then the two of them rose up off of it using their magic. But instead of just rising up enough to clear the buildings, they continued to ascend, going higher and higher. They rose up over the towers of the Royal Palace, they rose far up over the city, then they started drifting towards the cliffside. “What are we looking for?” Summer Dawn asked, floating along side him.

“A good entry point, that will be sheltered from the rain and also be hard to see from the ground,” he answered. “I’ll use the stoneshaping spell I learned to open a room from that point.”

“Whoa, that is a long way down,” Summer Dawn said as she looked down at the city. “I’m glad I’m not afraid of heights.”

They moved along the cliffside for a good half an hour, until they reached the waterfall that tumbled down onto the grounds of her house. “Hey, look at that,” she said in excitement, pointing with a hoof. “There’s a cave! What about a cave, Star? Would that work?”

“It might,” he said as they drifted towards the opening. It was small and irregular, only about twenty feet from the cut in the rock formed by the water rushing down the cliffside. They had to wriggle a bit to get inside the opening, since it was very narrow and ran diagonally from lower left to upper right, but behind that tight opening was a surprisingly large single gallery. It was a dome chamber, he saw, with a high sloping roof that was shaped like a dome, which gave the rock great strength and the ability to hold up the weight of the rock over it, which was why it hadn’t collapsed. There were numerous stalactites and stalagmites, and there was a pool of still water in the back of the chamber that ran across the back wall in a crescent shape, hugging the wall. The floor sloped downwards from the entry, which was why the water had pooled there. The air inside the chamber was noticeably warmer than outside, but still a bit chilly, and he saw something unusual…there were no hibernating bats in the chamber. A cave this size, there should be bats in here, but there weren’t. And that fact made the floor of the chamber clean, with only some rock detritus and some lichens, meaning there wasn’t a layer of bat guano.

He saw why after looking around some more. There was a narrow crack in the top of the dome that was a very narrow, jagged pocket, and there was a hibernating rock bat in there. Rock bats were much larger and much meaner versions of regular bats, which ate gems like dragons did, and they were highly territorial. A rock bat would chase all other bats out of the cave it claimed. Luckily, thestrals had a good understanding of rock bats, since they lived in the Nightlands, and Starjumper could deal with having one as a roommate. He knew what to do to keep the bat from attacking him…just feed it some gems and impress upon it that it would get free meals if it shared the cave with him.

All in all, this cave was a good place. It was large, it had room for expansion, it had available water and access to flowing water once he fixed it so water stopped dripping into the chamber. It would work. In fact, he could clean this place up and turn it into quite a nice little one chamber abode, all he needed to do was clear out the stalagmites and stalactites and seal off the cracks that was letting water leak in, which formed them in the first place. And what was most important, he could use stoneshaping magic to seal off the entrance to the chamber and make a hidden door, something that would blend in with the cliff face from the outside and be almost impossible to see, and something he could open without magic at night to get in and out.

“Nghhahh! What the hay?” Summer Dawn grunted. He looked over and saw that she was using the spider spell, and was trying to walk up the wall. She struggled with every placed hoof, gritting her teeth and hauling herself up, and her legs were already starting to tremble. “I thought the magic let you ignore gravity!”

“It doesn’t, for you or for me,”

“You make this look so easy!” she panted, dragging herself up another step.

“I’ve been walking up and down the walls long enough to build up the strength to make it look easy,” he replied lightly. “I’m a lot stronger than I look, Summer. And if you think that’s hard, turn sideways and try to stand like you’re on the ground,” he chuckled. “If your muscles can’t handle it, it’ll break your legs.”

“No thank you, I just got out of one cast, I don’t need another. Besides, I’ve never seen you do that before. Any time you’re sideways, you have your legs bent so your body is close to the wall and your lower legs are angled to brace yourself.”

“Then that should tell you not to do it. If we won’t, then you’d better not,” he replied. “Physics matters when you’re walking on the walls, so that means the further away your body is from the wall, the more stress it puts on your legs to support your weight.”

“No doubt,” she replied, dragging herself up another step. “Ngh! Thestrals must be really strong!”

“Don’t ever let Songbird kick you,” he said seriously. “Even a foal her age is strong enough to knock your block off.”

“I’m not surprised,” she panted. “I think I need to work out if I want to do this.”

“Gravity is a harsh mistress,” he chuckled.

He left her to enjoy the reality of walking on walls while he continued to study the chamber. He planned out how he was going to organize it in his mind, where he was going to put the bookshelves, where he’d put his writing desk and bed, where the kitchen would go, and whatnot. Summer Dawn made it up halfway up the wall before she abandoned it and just floated among the stalactites. “What do you think, Star? We could clear these out, put some furniture in here. We’ll have to do something about that water, though.”

“Don’t go any higher,” he warned after glancing up at her. “There’s a rock bat hibernating in the crack above your head. Get too close and he’ll wake up, and he’ll be very cranky.”

“A rock bat? Those giant bats?” she asked. “I had one try to snatch my headdress once.”

“It was after the gems in it,” he replied. “And they’re aggressive enough to try something like that. Given they’re territorial, it might have been that rock bat that did it,” he mused. “Canterlot is his territory, and he’d attack any other rock bat that tried to move in.”

“Oh really?” she asked archly, looking up at the crack in the roof. “I had nightmares for days after that. It scared the hay out of me.”

“You’re a little too old for revenge,” he told her. “Leave him alone. If anything, having him in the cave will seriously deter any pony that decides to come in here without my permission.”

“What, you can talk to bats or something?”

“Of course not,” he said, rolling his eyes a little bit. “Rock bats are fairly intelligent, and they can be tamed if you know what you’re doing. They’re as smart as dogs, Summer, they can even be taught a few tricks. And thestrals know how to do it. We have experience with bats, for obvious reasons,” he said simply.

“Your mom taught you that?”

“Given that rock bats will attack you if you don’t understand them, yes, she taught me about rock bats,” he replied. “She didn’t teach me how to train one to do tricks, but I know how they behave and I can convince that one to share the cave with me. It won’t be tame like a pet, but we can share the cave and be comfortable with each other.”

“Oh. Neat,” she mused, looking up again. “So, is this it?”

“This is it,” he nodded. “We can come back tomorrow and get started. You can practice in here while I’m working. And the first thing I’m gonna need are some gems. Preferably emeralds and sapphires, those are a rock bat’s favorite.”

“Oh, you feed it, it lets you share the cave,” she realized.

He nodded. “It’s a mutually beneficial relationship, since both of us will be defending the cave from invaders.” He landed on the floor near the water pool and turned towards the opening. “Let’s go before our body heat warms the cave enough for him to wake up. We’re not ready for him yet,” he told her.

“Okay. Let’s go back to your apartment and make a list of what we’ll need. This could kinda be fun,” she said, looking around. “I’ve never done anything like this before. I can use this as a chance to practice some of the magic you taught me in a real life situation.”

“Yup. Practical applications are always the best teaching tools,” he agreed.

It took them nearly three weeks, including a break for Hearth’s Warming Eve, but they got it done.

On a particularly cold afternoon, Starjumper used magic to transfigure a pile of rocks into a dining table, complete with a red tablecloth, and when he set it over by the kitchen area, they were officially done. Summer Dawn fidgeted a bit with the tablecloth using her magic as Starjumper used his magic to hover up over the floor, rising up to the hanging bar that the rock bat used as a perch, and looked down to survey their work. The walls were dominated by bookshelves he had shaped into them rather than building them out, filled with his books and scrolls, and his writing desk sat near the opening, which had been reformed into a closeable door complete with a “bat hatch” that the rock bat could open with a tug on a chain and get out. The rear of the chamber held the kitchen and dining area, and he had couches and cushions in the center of the chamber for them to use. The interior was lit with glowing crystals that were set into the walls that doubled as heat sources, keeping the chamber warm, and he’d shaped ventilation ducts to keep the air fresh inside.

The rock bat looked over at him curiously. Summer Dawn had named him Rocky, and Luna smack him upside the head if it hadn’t stuck. It was an unimaginative, ridiculous name for a bat, but now he was calling the bat Rocky, and the bat seemed to answer to it. The rock bat had accepted him as a roommate after a generous offering of gems, and he fed it a couple of gems a day to make sure that their living arrangements remained amenable. The warmth of the cave and the steady food supply had disrupted his hibernation a bit, but it wouldn’t hurt him. He still slept most of the time, in a lightless nook Starjumper made for him in the ceiling, and he’d wake up for his gems and to survey the changes they’d made to his cave a little bit before going back to sleep. “What?” he asked the bat when he looked over at him.

Rocky rolled his eyes a little.

“Hey, I wanted to keep a few of the stalactites. I thought they added a little aesthetic charm to the room. Blame her,” he accused, pointing down at Summer Dawn.

“They were a hazard,” Summer Dawn answered as she got the tablecloth the way she wanted it. “Aaand, we’re done! All done! It’s finished, Star, finally!”

It had taken them three weeks to clear out the chamber, waterproof the walls, level the floor and drain the pool, build the door, burrow a pipe and tank out to the waterfall that supplied fresh water for the apartment, form the ventilation ducts, and add a few touches, like a second room that Starjumper shaped out of the rock to act as a storage chamber, and a hidden room behind a rock wall, that had no way in except teleportation, where he kept the gems that Summer Dawn paid him…and to keep Rocky from getting into them and eating all his money. It was about the size of the main floor of Princess Twilight’s apartment, and that was more than enough room for him. But the most important part of it was that nopony knew where it was, and even if they did, a vast majority of them couldn’t reach it. Starjumper would never use the door in the daylight, he just teleported in, and at night, the darkness would conceal his comings and goings given that his cave-apartment was a good two hundred feet above the city, more than high enough for him to be invisible in the darkness.

A lot had happened in three weeks, and not all of it was good. Summer Dawn had mastered blind teleportation, and now he was teaching her external teleportation. Fancy Pants had officially finished his tutoring with Starjumper, and could now teleport like a pro, and Fleur de Lis had finished her work on shields and was now working on teleportation herself. In that respect, things were going very well, better than he expected, mainly because all three of his students were very strong magicians and were also very smart, which made teaching them very easy.

When it came to school, things were also going well. They were taking advantage of self study to learn a lot, both of them, as Starjumper abused the school’s library, and used school time to teach Summer Dawn other spells, other magic, expanding her foundation and teaching new disiciplines of magic. She’d learned ten spells over the last three weeks, including the book reading spell…and that was what had truly expanded her learning. She could now use the books in the library, having the spell read the books to her, and she was using it. Luna, was she using it, and not just for school books. Her parents had told him that she spent almost all her free time using the book reading spell while she practiced other magic, listening while she practiced and learning, or having it read her books meant purely for entertainment, like Daring Do books or mysteries. The world of books had been opened up to her, and she was exploring it with tremendous enthusiasm.

That was why he taught it to her.

And just like her, Nightsong had told him the last time she visited that Silver Moon had also mastered the spell, and he was finally able to enjoy books without having somepony read them to him. To say he was ecstatic about it was an understatement.

The bad came outside of school and home. The city of Canterlot was turning against him more and more with each passing day, and not even Princess Twilight had managed to reverse it. She had again made it very clear to the townsponies that the old Lykan stories were wrong, that Starjumper was no danger, no threat, but the rumors persisted. They’d gotten worse over the days, even when what ponies kept whispering about never happened. The full moon had came and went without Starjumper going on a rampage, and not a single foal in Canterlot had woken up with bite marks on them the entire time he’d been in the city. The Princess pointed those things out quite deliberately, but the citizens of Canterlot weren’t listening.

Fear didn’t care about logic. Fear only cared about fear.

As he feared, he had become a complete pariah in the city. He no longer shopped for himself, because any store that allowed him in quickly lost all its other customers, and they stayed away, as if he had contaminated the building with his presence. Saffron had very nearly lost the Tasty Treat, and what hurt Starjumper deeply, Donut Joe had been forced to close his diner when his customers abandoned him. He decided to retire rather than move to another town and start over, but he retired in Ponyville, not willing to live in a city that had treated him like that after he’d run that diner for nearly forty years. He was bitter over it…and Starjumper couldn’t blame him.

Fancy Pants and Fleur de Lis had offered to pay to set him up in a new diner in Ponyville, showing a lot of compassion towards him, but he had declined.

Being connected to Starjumper had damaged Summer Dawn’s family in the social circles. Only their status as the paragons of Canterlot had allowed them to survive the rumors, rumors that ran all the way to the most ridiculous, like that Starjumper had somehow used his Lykan magic to control their minds, and was using them to protect him so he could stay in the city.

Really, that was just stupid. There was nothing in any of the old stories about a Lykan being able to do that…yet ponies were believing it. They were inventing new mysterious powers for him, and by Luna’s moon, there were a couple of them that he wouldn’t mind having, but they were just getting utterly ludicrous. And in this case, his reputation for being a skilled magician was working against him, because they believed he had the ability to do those things because he could teleport.

Despite some of their friends starting to turn against them, Fancy Pants and Fleur de Lis continued to advocate for him, defend him, and for that they had his eternal gratitude. He wasn’t going to stay in Canterlot, but he would be forever grateful to Summer Dawn’s family for believing in him, and he would be there for them if they ever needed him. They had stood up for him, and that had earned them his undying loyalty.

Because of that, because of everything, Starjumper was only seen on the campus of the school now…and even there, the fear was invading. While nopony had pulled their children from the school yet—Princess Twilight made a very ugly threat that any student pulled from the school for the rest of the school year would be permanently barred from Royal service, which in Canterlot was a major blow to their social status—the Headmistress was dealing with daily visits from irate and fearful parents, demanding protection for their foals, colts, and fillies with the Lykan running loose on the campus grounds. He’d had a dislike for Roseglass at first, but now he was honestly appreciative of her, because she was defending him as much as the Princess and Summer Dawn’s family was. She constantly tried to defuse the angry parents, explained to them that the stories were wrong, and by Celestia she should know because she was the Headmistress, and knew more about magic and magical creatures than anypony in Canterlot not royalty. But she had just as little success as the Princess and Summer Dawn’s family had.

So, this cozy room was both his sanctuary and his prison, and he’d made it a gilded cage. It was both functional and warm, with everything he needed and laid out in a convenient and logical manner, and was also built in three dimensions to take into account that he considered the rounded walls and domed roof as much floor space as the floor was. Many of the bookshelves could only be reached by a pony that could walk on walls or self-levitate, he had two bookstands built on the walls, he had a nice napping spot on the ceiling close to one of the warming crystals, and the storage room door was built high off the floor, out of reach for anypony bound by gravity.

The big surprise in this entire project had been the rock bat. While rock bats were very large and very aggressive, they were actually rather cute. They resembled giant fruit bats, what some ponies called flying foxes, except they had thin yet very strong stone skin under their fur, which was like a suit of armor that made them very tough…the reason they were called rock bats. He’d been easy to convince to share the cave, but what was surprising was how much he liked Summer Dawn. He got along with Starjumper, resonating with his thestral blood, but he’d taken an honest liking to the slender unicorn, especially after she brought him a huge gem to eat that was his favorite, a black sapphire. He knew that Summer Dawn would give him treats, and that made him all but flit around the apartment in gleeful anticipation whenever she visited. He was also huge for a rock bat, effectively the size of a large dog and weighing just as much despite being much more slender because of his stone skin, which wasn’t that big a surprise. Canterlot would be prime territory for a gem-eating rock bat, and only the biggest, toughest, meanest rock bat was going to be able to hold it against the many rock bats that would try to move in and take it from him.

“We can start moving in your stuff now, Star,” Summer Dawn said, looking up at them. “Oooh, is Rocky hungry?” she asked, looking to the side, then fishing a large peridot out of her saddlebags. The rock bat dropped off his perch and circled her eagerly, then she used magic to toss it up into the air. The rock bat swooped in and snagged it, wolfing it down, then he landed on the table and nearly knocked her over trying to nuzzle her. “That’s a good boy,” she said lovingly, petting him with her hoof. “Now you need to go take a nap, boy, you’ve been up almost all afternoon. Staying awake so long when you’re supposed to be hibernating can’t be good for you. We’ll try not to bother you too much while we move in, okay?”

He licked her face, making her giggle, then he took off and returned to his perch. He folded his wings around himself and closed his eyes, and just like that, he was asleep.

Seriously, that mare just took over everything in his life, even his roommate.

“The non-essentials, anyway,” he agreed. “I want to get my books over here first. These bookshelves are way too bare, it’s almost scary.”

“Well, this is a good chance for some external teleportation practice,” she grinned eagerly.

“Yeah, no. You’re not ready to teleport flammables yet,” he chided, which made her laugh. He landed beside her. “Ready?”

“Yup.”

“Be back in a while, Rocky. Protect the cave,” he called, which made the rock bat open his eyes, look at him a second, then close them again. He stepped up to Summer Dawn and caused both of them to vanish in a circular burst of golden magic—

—And they reappeared in an inferno!

The heat hit him first, a searing, intense heat that immediately singed away his mane. He stifled a gasp, knowing that inhaling that superheated air would damage his lungs, and he quickly covered both Summer Dawn and himself in a shield to protect her before she did just that. The apartment was on fire! Flames were consuming everything, the smoke rising high enough not to be a threat, but the air inside was so hot that it would kill if they stayed there more than a few seconds! He quickly envisioned a landing point close to the tower but far enough away to be safe from the flames, so he could gather his wits and try to come up with a plan to save what belongings he had that hadn’t burned.

But Summer Dawn had a much better plan, and something he didn’t consider. She raised her head, her eyes intense with concentration, and the magic around her horn changed from pink to blue. A globe of blue energy formed around it, the ice beam spell, and he gave a sudden nod of understanding even as she released it with all of her amazing power. The globe of intense cold expanded away from her with incredible speed, and the sheer cold of it was enough to snuff out every lick of flame that it touched. The fire was extinguished in an instant wherever it was touched by the globe as it expanded to fill the entire large room, turning the air from deadly hot to frigid cold in a heartbeat, so cold that their breath misted, and a deadly miasma of fog and smoke started to descend towards the floor. “The fire’s still burning upstairs!” Starjumper called in a loud, urgent voice, then they heard the wooden support beams overhead start to creak ominously, affected by the sudden change from burning heat to sub-zero cold. “The tower’s going to collapse! Don’t move!” Even as he closed his mouth, his horn blazed with golden magic, and the two of them vanished from inside the tower and reappeared in the air a good hundred feet away, the only safe place he could take them given that the campus grounds may have ponies on it that were attracted by the fire. He caught them in his magic before they fell and held them at a hover as he coughed violently, feeling the pain from the burns on his face and where his mane had been singed off. Summer Dawn’s mane had also been singed, but not all the way, and she had several splotches on her face and neck where her fur had singed off and burned the skin under it.

He was wise to pick his landing point above the ground, because dozens of students were standing on the snow-covered lawn under them, watching the tower burn. They all gasped and staggered back when the top of it collapsed in a loud tearing of stone and snapping wood, then the walls burst outward and the entire structure fell to the earth. A thick cloud of dust mixed with burning embers billowed away from the collapse, which caused some cries of dismay and pain from the spectators as they turned away to shield their faces, and the embers struck them and left singe marks.

He landed in front of them with Summer Dawn, taking a few steps forward, his eyes wide and his face horrified. Almost everything he owned was in there! He’d moved the essentials, and thank Luna he’d moved his money, but his books, all his books, they were gone! His pictures, his journals, the blanket his mother had made for him, his Hearth’s Warming Eve presents, all his keepsakes…gone. They were all gone! A sudden gout of fire roared up from the top of the twisted mass as the fire that Summer Dawn’s spell hadn’t smothered started to spread into the wooden beams that hadn’t been consumed.

What had happened? He hadn’t left anything cooking. There were no open flames anywhere in the apartment, he used warming crystals to heat it.

Summer Dawn stepped up beside him. “Star! Oh, Star! We teleported right into it!” she said in a tremulous voice.

“You saved our lives, Summer,” he told her in a quiet, almost numb voice. “Thank you.”

“I was trying to save the apartment,” she said in a quavering yet rueful voice.

“Serves you right, you filthy monster!” he heard somepony shout from behind them. He snapped his head back over his shoulder and saw Nova standing with his two sycophants, looking smugly happy over the fact that Starjumper’s house had just burned down. “Go back to Tarterus where you belong!”

There was a gasp that rippled through the crowd, and Nova’s nasty grin dissolved into a look of pure fear when he realized that Starjumper had turned to face him, and his face had lost all rational composure. His expression was one of utter, absolute, unmitigated fury, but what frightened Nova, and every pony that could see him, was that all light and color had drained out of his eyes. They were nothing but twin pools of utter black, and wisps of that eternal darkness escaped from the corners of his eyes. His horn flared with an aura of magic, but it wasn’t the gold that ponies had seen, it was a shroud of darkness, pure darkness.

It was coming…from somewhere else. Somepony else. He could hear it, a scream of pain and helplessness and rage and fury that echoed across the eternal darkness and found the only outlet it could, which was Starjumper. It was a song, but a song of hatred and fury and fear and pain, the song of the night twisted into a terrifying nightmare that filled his mind with both horrors and rage beyond imagination, nearly destroying his mind. He couldn’t process it, he couldn’t push back against it, he could do nothing. His own fury had opened the door to this outside force, and it was boiling into him like an avalanche of pain. Before his mind was drowned in a black sea of fury, he could make out only one rational melody of the song. It was under attack. Something was boring into it like a beetle burrowing into the bark of a tree, consuming it, corrupting it, causing unimaginable agony. And that pain became rage, the need to lash out at the one hurting it…hurting him.

There was no control. The rage had come out of nowhere, and it controlled him utterly. The dark aura around his horn spread over his head, down his back, and he felt something that, if he had been rational, would have scared him beyond reason. The black magic reached into him, into the core of his being, and it ripped out what was sleeping. In a sickening sound of tearing flesh, the bones of his wings erupted from his back, and they grew out and expanded with magical speed, chased by the muscle, flesh, and tissue, and then the skin and fur. In half a heartbeat, his thestral wings were out, they were out in the daytime. Wisps of black magic clung to his wings, drifted away from them in tendrils as he snapped them out in a full display. The shadow issued out of his singed head and neck, forming a mane of solid darkness, and it flowed down his tail.

The rage blinded him, covered his vision in a red haze, and dominated his mind. There was nothing there but the need to hurt as he hurt, the need to lash out at his tormentor, the need to kill, and all of his attention was fixated on the one that had caused his rage to be unleashed.

Nova.

The stallion’s eyes widened, and he turned to run. But it was too late. A blast of utter blackness raged from his horn and rampaged across the smoky air, but dark blur streaked down and landed right in the path of the blast. The bolt of black magic struck the figure and stopped, wisps and currents of magic flowing around the figure’s chest. It was a bat-winged pony wearing metal armor, a mare, spreading her wings and squaring off against him with her expression determined. Starjumper’s rage-dominated mind fixated on this new target, one that had dared deny him, and he lunged at her.

Summer Dawn couldn’t fathom what was happening. How? How were his wings out? It was daytime! And what was going on? Why was he surrounded by that black magic?

And what in Celestia’s glorious day was Moonblade doing out of her jail cell? She gasped and took a step back when the two of them collided on the lawn, and she nearly felt sick when she saw blood fly as the two sank their fangs into each other, flesh tearing. They fought like wild beasts, kicking, biting, the smaller mare getting pushed back, but her armor was protecting her from Starjumper’s striking hooves. Starjumper pushed the smaller thestral down under him, but was driven up and over her head when she planted both back hooves in his belly and kicked him off. She rolled through that motion and regained her hooves, then spread her wings and took off, flying up and away with great speed. Starjumper opened his wings and moved to follow, but Summer Dawn snapped out of her shock and sprung into action. She enclosed Starjumper in a shield, and she remembered him telling her that he couldn’t break a shield she made if she put enough into it, so she made it as strong as possible, putting every bit of her strength into it. He rebounded off the inside of the shield, then his face twisted into a grotesque snarl and he drove his horn against the inside. She felt that, felt his magic attack the shield, but she held it firm as he tried to disrupt it.

Moonblade swung around and landed beside her, blood flowing down her neck, shoulder, and foreleg from his fangs. “We have to get him out of here or he’ll kill everypony!” she ordered.

“What’s happening?” she asked, her eyes tearing up as she looked at the thestral.

“It’s the Night Stone!” she answered in a loud voice. “He can’t control it! It’s driven him mad! You won’t hold him long!”

As if that statement was prophecy, Summer Dawn flinched as a magical backlash ripped through her, as Starjumper disrupted the shield she had placed around him. The black aura around his horn had grown even larger, and there was an aura of darkness surrounding him. He lowered his horn at her, and she raised a shield even as a bolt of utter blackness raged from his horn. It hit the surface of her shield and was repelled, splitting into three currents and flowing to the sides and over it. “Keep him distracted!” Moonblade said, taking off again.

Before she could say anything, or do anything, there was a golden burst of magic, and Princess Celestia was standing in front of her! The tall, regal princess took a few steps towards Starjumper, her horn glowing in an aura of magic. “We hear you,” she said in a calm, powerful voice. “We hear your cry. We will help you.” A golden shield formed around her, and another attack from Starjumper was deflected, then the shield dissolved. “He will come and save you. Be strong,” she continued, walking towards him in a slow, non-threatening manner. “He will come. He will make the pain stop.”

Starjumper’s expression changed, his black eyes widening as his head came up.

“You must let him go,” she said soothingly. “We have heard your cry. We will help you. He will answer your call. But you must let him go, before you hurt him. Without him, we cannot help you.”

Starjumper’s eyes seemed to relax, from their shape, and the look of total rage began to slip away from his face. The aura of darkness around him began to fade, evaporating, and Summer Dawn gasped when his wings shuddered, blackened, and then crumbled to ash once the aura of dark magic vanished around them. The blackness bled from his eyes, returning the yellow ones she knew so well, then they rolled up into his head, and he collapsed to the ground.

“Star!” she cried in a strangled tone, charging past the Princess and lowering down by his head. He was out cold, and there was a lingering charge of magic around him.

“Gently, Summer Dawn,” the Princess said in her stately voice. The other three princesses all appeared—no, all five of them appeared!—surrounding him, and he was picked up in an aura of soft blue magic from Princess Cadence.

“What just happened, your Highness? What happened to him?” she asked as Moonblade landed beside his floating body.

“It was the Night Stone, crying out for help. Starjumper is a Lykan, Summer Dawn,” she said, looking back at her. “We now know what that means. He is connected to the Night Stone. He is its guardian, and the Night Stone is in danger. That was the Night Stone reaching out to him in its pain and fear, begging for his help, and he wasn’t ready for it. The Night Stone’s pain overwhelmed him and made him lose control.”

“But, but the legend! He’s supposed to destroy the Night Stone!”

“A lie,” she said calmly. “As are all the stories spread about Lykans in Equestria. The thestrals spread those lies so a Lykan would find no safe harbor with other ponies, would be feared, reviled, and isolated, and thus easier to kill.” She looked back to the burning tower. “And I see that even here in Canterlot, fear can overcome reason,” she said with a gentle, yet bitterly disappointed, voice.

Summer Dawn looked up at her in surprise, but what she said made sense. “But why? If he’s the guardian of the Night Stone, why would the thestrals drive him away?”

“Because when a pony mad for power is presented with a threat to that power, they will do terrible things to keep it,” she answered. “In the ancient times, a single word from a Lykan could dethrone the Night King. Is it a surprise that a Night King, fearful of that power, would have that voice silenced?”

Summer Dawn looked up at her incredulously.

Luna stepped up to Moonblade and Summer Dawn, who were standing side by side next to Starjumper’s floating, unconscious body.

“What’s going on, your Highness?” Summer Dawn asked in confusion, feeling overwhelmed.

“We will tell you very soon, Summer Dawn,” Luna answered, looking down at her. “Both you and Moonblade are involved in this, and we will need your help.”

“Moonshade, your Highness,” she corrected. “I will not be called by that title. It no longer has honor.”

“Twilight, Flurry Heart, take Moonshade and Summer Dawn to the palace. See to their injuries,” Princess Celestia ordered. “Cadence, take Starjumper to the palace and put him into a bed so he can rest. Starlight, Summon Fancy Pants and Fleur de Lis, and send a messenger to recall Nightsong and Comet Tail to Canterlot. Have them get here as fast as Nightsong can fly. Luna and I will be along shortly, just as soon as we deal with this,” she added, looking at the burning remnants of the tower.

“Yes, Celestia. Are you alright to walk, Moonshade?” Princess Flurry Heart asked.

“This is just a scratch, your Highness,” she replied dismissively, despite the fact that blood was flowing down her leg.

The Princesses escorted them towards the palace grounds, and Summer Dawn was too scattered to be able to think much about what had just happened. But she did have the presence of mind to look up at the thestral walking beside her. “Did they tell you what’s going on?”

“Some,” she replied. “And I believe what they said. I can’t believe I almost killed the only pony that can save the Night Stone…from my own mother,” she said in disgust. “She sent me here to kill him to make sure he couldn’t stop her.”

“Couldn’t you do it? Save the Night Stone?”

“Nopony can touch the Night Stone, except the Lykan,” she answered. “I didn’t know about that part, but every pony in the Nightlands knows that you can’t touch the Night Stone. It kills anypony that puts a hoof on it,” she explained. “The magic of the Night Stone overwhelms the idiot, and they die. Horribly.”

“But it won’t kill him.”

“He’s a Lykan,” Twilight injected. “He’s half unicorn, Summer Dawn.”

“He can control the magic!” she gasped.

“So they say,” Moonshade nodded.

“How did they convince you?”

“They showed me,” she answered. “They had ancient thestral tomes, books they couldn’t have possibly faked, and they showed me what my mother and grandfather are doing. They’re trying to resurrect some ancient unicorn king named Sombra, and they’re using the Night Stone to do it.”

Summer Dawn gasped heavily. “Sombra!” she declared.

“So who is this Sombra guy?”

“He enslaved the Crystal Empire and made it vanish for a thousand years when the Royal Sisters defeated him!” she replied. “Then Spike the Dragon destroyed him and saved the Crystal Empire when it returned!”

“So, he’s tough?”

“Oh yes, he was tough,” Princess Twilight said dryly as they went through the gate and entered the grounds.

“Well now, that sounds like a worthy opponent for a thestral warrior,” Moonshade said with anticipation.

Princess Twilight didn’t hide her sigh of exasperation very well. Princess Flurry Heart glanced over at her, and couldn’t resist a bit of a giggle.

She thought about everything she’d learned as Princess Twilight tended her wounds herself with her magic, Princess Flurry Heart tending Moonshade, using the same spell the doctors at the hospital used to heal her burns. Starjumper wasn’t cursed, he was blessed, as a Lykan he was the only pony that had a connection to the Night Stone, and that gave them tremendous political power among the thestrals. And in the past, the old Night Kings of the Nightlands had been so afraid of that fact that they’d killed all the Lykans, made laws to prevent any new ones from being born, and spread the stories about them to make everypony afraid of them in case one was born. And when one was born, they sent out their soldiers to hunt down the newborn foal and kill it before it became a threat, because what just happened made it clear that the Night Stone could act through a Lykan, even across a great distance. Maybe a Lykan had to be a certain age before the Night Stone could use him that way, because nothing like that had ever happened while she knew Starjumper, and it sounded like the Night Stone had been in danger for a while. Why did the Night Stone only do what it did now? Why didn’t it do it when it was first put in danger by Moonblade—Moonshade’s mother and grandfather?

After she was healed of her burns, and even got her mane restored, she was brought into the throne room by the Princess. Moonshade was there, standing in front of the throne in her armor, and the other five Princesses were already there, standing on the dais in front of the twin thrones of the Royal Sisters. Twilight ascended the dais and joined her sister Princesses, then turned to look at them as the doors at the end of the large hall opened. Her parents were escorted in by unicorn guards, both of them looking quite surprised, and they bowed when they reached where Summer Dawn and Moonshade were standing.

“Thank you for getting here quickly, Fancy Pants,” Princess Celestia said calmly.

“I am always at your service, your Highness,” he said easily, looking over at his daughter and Moonshade. “I take it this has something to do with the fire?”

“This concerns Starjumper and your daughter.”

Her parents looked over at her, then her mother stepped forward a little. “What’s going on, your Highness?”

“It’s a complicated thing to explain, and I will go into greater detail when Comet Tail and Nightsong arrive,” she answered. “But to summarize, your daughter is part of one of the ancient prophecies. We have unraveled the meaning of that prophecy and can act upon it, which means we can now speak of it safely.”

Her parents weren’t the only ones that gasped. Summer Dawn gave her a shocked look. She was part of a prophecy?

“We have learned the meaning of the prophecy,” she said, spreading and raising her wings over her back. “The prophecy states that we will call on her, Moonshade, and Starjumper to protect Equestria from a malevolent force known as the King of Darkness, and we have learned who that is. Moonshade’s mother, the Night Queen, is trying to resurrect Sombra using the Night Stone, an ancient relic of great power possessed by the thestrals. Sombra is the King of Darkness from the prophecy. So we have need for Starjumper to go to the Nightlands and rescue the Night Stone from the Night Queen’s clutches, to protect it from harm and prevent Sombra from being returned to the world. If he is brought back and takes the power of the Night Stone for his own, he will not only be far more dangerous than he was when he controlled the Crystal Empire, he will have the thestrals to serve as his army as he tries to conquer Equestria. Whoever controls the Night Stone controls the thestrals.”

“Because Summer Dawn is part of the prophecy, we need her to go to the Nightlands to stop the Night Queen before this can come to pass,” Luna continued. “She is a powerful unicorn magician, and they will need her magic to reach the Night Stone.”

“And I will get us there,” Moonshade finished. “You’ll need a thestral to help once we get to the Nightlands. I know where everything is, and I can help you get inside the Cathedral of Night to reach the Night Stone.”

“Just so,” Princess Celestia nodded. “Moonshade has already pledged her support, for what her mother is doing puts every thestral in the world in danger. If Sombra is awakened, he will drain the Night Stone of its magic, which will give him power over the thestrals. And if the Night Stone is destroyed by that process—“

“We won’t be thestrals anymore,” Moonshade interrupted. “And I can’t let that happen. I love my mother, but I love my kingdom and my race more.”

“That’s awful!” Summer Dawn gasped. “We have to stop them!”

“I’m glad to hear you say that, little slip,” Moonshade said, looking down at her with an approving nod. “The Princess says that you’re the only unicorn that can pull this off, if that prophecy is true. We’re gonna need you.”

“I’ll help,” she declared immediately. “If Sombra comes back, there’ll be a war, and both Equestria and the thestrals will suffer horribly. I won’t let that happen,” she declared adamantly.

“What role does Starjumper play in this, your Highness?” Fleur de Lis asked.

“Starjumper is a Lykan, Fleur de Lis,” Celestia answered. “We have come to learn that Lykans are the guardians of the Night Stone, the only ponies that can touch it, and the only ponies that can safely channel its magic. His thestral heritage connects him to the Night Stone, and his unicorn heritage gives him the ability to control the Night Stone’s magic safely. And that is why the Night Queen sent Moonshade to kill him. He is the only one that can stop them, denying it to them and thwarting their plan. And he will need both Summer Dawn and Moonshade to get him to the Night Stone so he can save it.”

“In the ancient times, it was the Lykans that chose the Night King, by the will of the Night Stone, and could also remove a Night King that displeased the Night Stone,” Luna continued. “From what we learned from ancient thestral history, a Night King in danger of being deposed instead had the Lykans murdered to prevent a new Night King from being chosen to replace him. He also began a campaign of demonizing the Lykans in thestral society and made laws to prevent new ones from being born to further protect his rule. That was how the Clan Wars began, when the Night King died and there was no pony to name a successor. The Night Kings and Queens that ruled after the Clan Wars knew this secret, and continued the practice to protect their power. They knew that the Night Stone would depose them if a Lykan were allowed to speak for it, so they continued to prevent new Lykans from being born, and spread the stories about Lykans to the other realms to further prevent a Lykan like Starjumper from ever coming to be, a Lykan that survived to adulthood and could therefore pose a real threat to the monarch’s rule.”

“But, what happened to him at the apartment?” Summer Dawn asked. “How did his wings come out in the daytime?”

“What happened?” Fancy Pants asked.

“We didn’t know the apartment was on fire, Dad, so we teleported right into it after working on his new apartment,” Summer Dawn answered. “We barely got out alive. There were a bunch of ponies there, including Nova, and he taunted us when we got out. Starjumper’s magic turned black, and he completely went crazy and tried to blast Nova, but Moonshade saved him.”

“The Night Stone is an ancient relic similar to the Tree of Harmony, Summer Dawn,” Princess Celestia answered. “It has an awareness of its own. It is not truly alive, but the power of its magic gives it what you might call a sentience. The Night Stone is in danger, and in a way, what the Night Queen is doing to it is putting it in terrible pain. It was that fear and pain that overwhelmed Starjumper when the Night Stone reached out to him.”

“That was what opened the door for the Night Stone,” Princess Starlight continued. “It was his rage that allowed the Night Stone to reach across the vast distance and touch him, because of the emotion involved. Emotion can enhance the power of magic, Summer Dawn, and given how incredibly disciplined Starjumper is, I’d bet that this is the first time since the Night Stone was put in danger that he’s lost his temper. He has such a tight control over his emotions, it was preventing the Night Stone from finding him, and reaching out to him for help. But when he lost his temper over Nova’s taunts, the emotion opened the door enough for the Night Stone to reach out and touch him. And he wasn’t ready for that.”

“As to his wings, remember what the Night Stone is, Summer Dawn,” Princess Celestia told her. “It is the source of magic that makes the thestrals what they are. With him directly connected to the Night Stone, it awoke the thestral within him and gave him the magic to manifest his thestral heritage.”

“Is he okay?”

“He’s sleeping right now, and we need to let him rest,” Princess Celestia answered.

“Can I see him?”

She gave her a gentle smile. “I’m sure that while we’re waiting for his parents to arrive, you can sit with him,” she replied.

“I just can’t believe it,” Moonshade grunted. “All my life, I was taught that Lykans are a threat to our entire race, only to find out that it was all a lie just so cowards could keep the throne,” she said in disgust. “And even you ponies fell for it.”

Princess Celestia saw her parents’ curious look. “We’ve discovered that it was the thestrals that made up the old stories about Lykans and spread them to the other realms, to ostracize any future Lykans from any society that might take them in. It was done to isolate them, cut them off from any possible protection and assistance, which would make them easier to kill.”

“You were right, dear,” Fancy Pants said, looking at Fleur de Lis. “When you told Starjumper that alone, he was vulnerable. It seems that the thestrals figured that out a long time ago.”

“I didn’t expect to be right in that way,” she answered.

“There’s something we’re missing here,” Moonshade said. “If my grandfather knew the truth, then he would have never made the treaty and let Starjumper live. He would have done whatever it took to kill him as a foal, before he became a threat to his rule.”

“At that time, Moonshade, he was in no position to press the issue,” Princess Celestia said. “The Nightlands was, and still is, utterly dependent on the food we trade them just to survive, so he had no choice but to accept the treaty. The alternative was to watch his kingdom starve, and have his subjects remove him from the throne in retaliation for bringing them such misery. Which, I fear, might be what caused this situation. Their dependence on Equestria for basic necessities exposed the Nightlands as being in a very weak position, which was quite humiliating to your grandfather, and also to your mother. Your mother is trying to resurrect Sombra so he might help the thestrals conquer their neighbors, take what they need to be self-sufficient, to be the mighty empire they once were in the distant past, feared by their neighbors and dominating the continent. She does not understand who Sombra is, what he is, and that his first act will be to kill her once he has the magic of the Night Stone so that he can sit on her throne. So, my dear Moonshade, you will be saving your mother and grandfather from themselves.”

“No. I won’t,” she replied in a flat voice. “There’s only one punishment in thestral law for treason, and what they are doing is treason.”

“Your own family?” Summer Dawn asked in surprise.

“I am a soldier of the Nightlands, and I will carry out justice in the name of my kingdom,” she replied stonily. “My mother and grandfather are putting our entire kingdom, our entire race at risk. They must be stopped, and must pay for their crimes against thestrality in the way thestral law demands. Death.”

Princess Celestia stepped forward to the edge of the dais. “We can explain everything in greater detail when Starjumper’s parents arrive,” she prompted. “Captain, escort Summer Dawn and her parents to Starjumper’s room, so they can be there when he wakes up. Moonshade, there is more we must discuss.”

“I’m at your service, your Highness,” Moonshade nodded, stepping forward.

They were escorted out of the throne room, and Summer Dawn could only feel worried. She wasn’t worried about what she learned, because all of that made sense. It explained everything, all those nagging little holes in everything that had gone on that made everything fall into place. Who he was, what he was, the old stories and legends, everything fell into place to explain it all. And she wasn’t even worried too much about this prophecy and what they wanted her to do. She was quite willing to go to the Nightlands and help, because she knew that it was protecting Starjumper and it was protecting his family, which she had come to adore. His mother was so kind and funny, his father was so smart, his brother so nice, and she loved his sisters. And all of them would be in danger if Moonshade’s family brought Sombra back, and so would all of Equestria.

She wasn’t afraid—well, not so much that she wouldn’t go. And if her magic could get Starjumper in there to save the Night Stone and save both the Nightlands and Equestria, she’d do everything in her power to make it happen.

What worried her was Starjumper. To see him like that, to see the power of the Night Stone take him over that way, it had really scared her. She had seen him with both his horn and his wings, almost like a bat-alicorn, but she remembered how the magic felt. It was too much for him, it had overwhelmed him, overtaken him, and it was hurting him from the inside. That was why Celestia told the Night Stone to stop, because it was hurting him, it was killing him. He had always told her that he wasn’t as strong as he looked, and she had never really believed it until that moment. His skill with magic made him look powerful, but that moment exposed that for the illusion it was.

What worried her, what scared her, was what the Night Stone would do to him when he touched it. Moonshade said that any pony that touched it died horribly, and she was deathly afraid that its power would be too much for him.

The old stories said that if he touched the Night Stone, it would shatter. What she feared was that if he touched the Night Stone, it would shatter him.